ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

LIST OF CONTENTS
MIHI 3
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 3
ESTABLISHMENT OF INQUIRY 5
TERMS OF REFERENCE 6
1. SUMMARY OF CONCLUSIONS OF INQUIRY 8
2. PROCEDURE 14
3. BACKGROUND 16
The Purpose Of Cervical Screening Programmes 16
The Impact Of Cervical Cancer On The Patient 20
The Unknown Scope Of The Under-Reporting Problem 29
The Response To The Under-Reporting Problem 31
4. TERM OF REFERENCE ONE 34
First Indicator 39
Second Indicator 42
Third Indicator 45
Other Evidence Showing Unacceptable Under-reporting 48
Conclusion 57
5. TERM OF REFERENCE TWO 58
Factors Relating To Practices Followed In Gisborne Laboratories 59
No Specialised Division Of Labour For Reading Cervical Smear Tests 59
Inadequate Internal Quality Control 65
Inadequate Systems And Procedures 67
No External Quality Control 68
No Accreditation With An Independent Quality Control Authority 69
Inadequate Participation In Continuing Medical Education 73
Lack Of Awareness And Insight As To How The Laboratory’s Practices
Put Patients At Risk. 74
Factors Relating To The Delivery Of Cytological Services In New Zealand
Between 1990 And March 1996 75
No Compulsory Quality Control 76
Design Faults Of The Government Policy For National Cervical Screening
(1991) As It Related To Laboratories Reading Cervical Cytology 84
Failure To Ensure The National Cervical Screening Register Functioned
Optimally 106
Failure To Put In Place Laboratory Performance Standards And To
Make Reliable Data Available 122
Failure To Conduct Any Comprehensive Exercise To Audit, Monitor
And Evaluate The Performance Of Laboratories Reading Cytology 136
Failure To Take Heed Of Overseas Screening Failures 145
Failure To Ensure All Components Of The Programme Were In
Place From An Early Stage 149
No Compulsory Reassessment Of Medical Practitioners 150
Conclusion 150
6. TERM OF REFERENCE THREE 152
Essential Components of a Cervical Screening Programme 156
Systemic Problems Of The National Cervical Screening Programme 158
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Failure to Follow the Advice of Various Experts on the Programme 173
Failure To Accept Expert Advice On The Need For Monitoring
And Evaluation 173
Failure To Accept Expert Advice On The Need For Laboratory
Accreditation 178
Failure To Follow Expert Advice On The Need To Have All
Parts Of A Screening Programme In Place From The Outset 178
Failure To Ensure That There Was Legal Power To Do What Was Needed
For The Programme To Be Effective And Failure To Exercise Or
To Exercise Properly Legal Powers That Were Available To Achieve
This End 188
No Monitoring and Evaluation 189
Legal Issues in Relation to Compulsory Imposition of Quality
Assurance Processes On Laboratories Reading Cervical Cytology 202
Social Security (Laboratory Diagnostic Services) Regulations 206
Funding Under Section 51 of the Health and Disability Services Act 1993 214
Has Unacceptable Under-Reporting Occurred Elsewhere? 217
Conclusion 221
7. TERM OF REFERENCE FOUR 223
Changes To The Programme’s Components 223
Changes To Legislation 224
8. TERM OF REFERENCE FIVE 226
Legislative Change 226
Proposed Changes To The Operation Of The National Cervical
Screening Programme 227
9. TERM OF REFERENCE SIX 232
Changes To Legislation 232
Changes To Guidelines Under Which Ethics Committees Operate 237
10. TERM OF REFERENCE SEVEN 243
Compensation For Women Affected 244
Access To Maori Women’s Data And The Kaitiaki Regulations 249
Programme’s Inability To Control Smear-takers 252
11. TERM OF REFERENCE EIGHT 255
STAFF ASSISTING THE COMMITTEE OF INQUIRY 264
PARTIES AND PERSONS HAVING AN INTEREST IN BEING HEARD 265
WITNESSES WHO APPEARED BEFORE THE COMMITTEE 266
LIST OF FORMAL PUBLIC SUBMISSIONS FILED WITH THE
CERVICAL SCREENING INQUIRY 269
GLOSSARY OF LEGAL AND MEDICAL DEFINITIONS 270
2
MIHI
He pukenga wai, ka puta te räkau,
He pukenga tangata ka puta te körero
Tihewa Mauri Ora
E ngä mana i ngä reo i ngä kärangarangatanga Iwi ö roto i te Tairäwhiti tënä ra koutou katoa.
Kia rätou kua riro nei kei te Pütahitanga ö Rehua, kia rätou kua riro nei i te ringa kaha ö
Aitua, haere atu koutou, haere ki ngä tini ki ngä mano, haere koutou haere, haere.
Tënei ra te mihi me te tangi atu kia koutou mö ä koutou manaaki ia mätou ö te Pakirehua ö
ngä mahi whakaatu ö te Waha ö te Whare Tangata i roto i ngä marama e toru e noho ai mätou
i Türanganui-Ä-Kiwa. Kähore e warewaretia e mätou ä koutou manaaki, äwhina, me ngä
karakia e tukuna atu e ngä Kaumätua kia tö tätou Kaihanga mai te tïmatanga tae noa atu ki te
rä whakamutunga.
Nö reira kia tau ngä manaakitanga ä Te Rungarawa ki runga ia koutou, te tümanako, kia piki
te ora ki runga i ngä mea e noho mäuiui ana.
Tënä koutou, tënä koutou, tënä tätou katoa.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The Committee of Inquiry wishes to acknowledge the many persons who participated in the
inquiry in various roles including : the witnesses who gave evidence; those persons who
provided the Committee with written submissions and other material; counsel assisting;
counsel representing the parties and persons entitled to be heard; the secretarial assistance and
those who helped in the transcription of evidence.
To ensure that all relevant evidence was heard in the 10 weeks which were available for that
purpose the hearing times were extended. They often lasted into the evening and occasionally
they extended to weekends. This placed a greater burden on counsel assisting, other counsel,
other persons who appeared before the Committee, witnesses and the Committee‟s secretarial
assistants, all of whom were obliged, at times, to be present in the evenings, on Saturdays, and
3
on one occasion on Sunday. In addition, the women affected agreed to reduce their number
who would be giving evidence to enable the Committee to hear evidence from other witnesses
whose evidence was relevant to terms of reference 3 to 8. Had it not been for the co-operation
of counsel, parties and other persons who appeared at the inquiry, and particularly the women
affected, the Committee would not have been able to complete the hearing of evidence within
the 10 week period. The Committee wishes to record its appreciation of the efforts that so
many people went to in order to ensure that the hearings were completed within time.
The Committee also wishes to acknowledge the significant work and effort that so many
individuals over the years have put into the National Cervical Screening Programme. Without
so much individual effort the Programme may never have started. The concerns about the
Programme, which the Committee has identified in its report, are no reflection on their hard
work. Much has been achieved in terms of the numbers of women now participating in the
Programme. It is unfortunate that the Programme has been found to be wanting in some
respects. Because the terms of reference have caused the Committee to look at these
particular aspects of the Programme the other areas, where it may have been more successful,
have not been addressed. This may create the impression for some that the examination of the
Programme has been unbalanced and disregards the very worthwhile efforts of so many, who
have worked to make the Programme successful. It is, however, a feature of committees of
inquiry that they are appointed usually to examine issues of concern and not to report on
successful outcomes. This report is not an examination of the entire Programme. Its focus is
narrow; the Committee has looked at the Programme purely from the perspective of the terms
of reference. This needs to be appreciated.
4
ESTABLISHMENT OF INQUIRY
The Minister of Health by letter dated 15 October 1999 appointed Ailsa Patricia Duffy QC,
Druiscilla Kapu Barrett and Gordon Wright as a committee of inquiry under section 47 of the
Health and Disabilities Act 1993. Subsequently in February 2000 Gordon Wright resigned
and in his place on 9 March 2000 the Minister appointed Máire Angela Duggan. The Minister
also extended to the Committee of Inquiry, pursuant to s.47(3) of the Health and Disability
Services Act the powers of a Commission of Inquiry under the Commissions of Inquiry Act
1908.
5
TERMS OF REFERENCE
The terms of reference of the Inquiry were contained in the Minister of Health‟s letter of
appointment. They directed Ailsa Duffy QC, Druiscilla Kapu Barrett CNZM and Máire
Angela Duggan MD, FRCPC to conduct an Inquiry into the reading of abnormalities in
cervical smears in the Gisborne region prior to March 1996, taking into account the results of
the reviews of cervical cytology and histology samples carried out by the Health Funding
Authority, on the following terms:
(i) To determine whether there has been an unacceptable level of under-reporting
in consequence of misreading and/or mis-reporting of abnormalities in cervical
smears in the Gisborne region.
(ii) If you determine that there has been an unacceptable level of under-reporting,
to identify the factors that are likely to have led to that under-reporting.
(iii) If you determine that there has been an unacceptable level of under-reporting,
to satisfy yourselves whether or not this was an isolated case rather than
evidence of a systemic issue for the National Cervical Screening Programme.
(iv) To identify changes already made to legislation, to laboratory or other
processes or to professional practices to address the risks of under-reporting of
abnormalities in cervical smears.
(v) To identify other changes agreed to be implemented, either by the Government
or by professional organisations, that will further address any risks of under-
reporting of abnormalities in cervical smears.
(vi) To consider all relevant proposals that could ameliorate any risks of under-
reporting of abnormalities in cervical smears and identify whether these are
covered by 4 or 5 above and whether further changes are needed.
(vii) To comment on any other issue the Inquiry Team believes to be of particular
relevance.
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(viii) To make recommendations, consistent with section 4(a) of the Health and
Disability Services Act 1993, as to any further action the Government or its
agencies should consider taking.
7
1. SUMMARY OF CONCLUSIONS OF INQUIRY
Term of Reference One
1.1 The Committee has concluded that there is ample evidence to show that there was an
unacceptable level of under-reporting at Gisborne Laboratories between 1990 and
March 1996. The extent of this under-reporting can be seen from the smear tests of 16
women from the Gisborne region who have developed cervical cancer. Gisborne
Laboratories had read their smear tests as normal. When the same smear tests were re-
read in Sydney by Douglass Hanly Moir Pathology, they were all reported as cervical
cancer or high-grade abnormalities.
Term of Reference Two
1.2 The Committee has concluded that the factors that are likely to have led to the
unacceptable reporting in the Gisborne region can be placed in two groups. The first
group of factors relates to the cytology practices followed at Gisborne Laboratories.
These include : no specialised division of labour for reading cervical smear tests;
inadequate internal quality control including no organised correlation of biopsy results
with cytology results; inadequate systems and procedures; no external quality control;
no accreditation with an independent quality control authority; Dr Bottrill‟s inadequate
participation in continuing medical education; no awareness that the laboratory‟s
practices put patients at risk.
1.3 The second group of factors relate to the delivery of cytology services in New Zealand
between 1990 and 1996. These factors include : laboratories reading cervical cytology
were not required to follow quality control processes or to be accredited with an
independent quality control authority; The Government Policy for National Cervical
Screening (1991) and the 1993 updated version in relation to laboratories reading
cervical cytology were not well designed; the National Cervical Screening Register
was not functioning optimally; there were no performance standards for laboratories,
and there were no reliable data on laboratories‟ performance; there was no monitoring
and evaluation of the performance of laboratories reading cervical cytology; the health
authorities did not take heed of the warnings provided by the failures of screening
8
programmes in other countries; there was a failure to ensure all components of the
programme where in place from an early stage. Furthermore, the Committee has
concluded that the group of factors relating to the delivery of cytological services in
New Zealand are all indicative of a failure to design and deliver a soundly based
cervical screening programme. The Committee considers that the practices at
Gisborne Laboratories which led to the unacceptable under-reporting continued for as
long as they did because of the failure to deliver a soundly based cervical screening
programme.
1.4 If those factors which the Committee considers the Programme lacked had been
present the practice of cervical cytology at Gisborne Laboratories would have been
improved or stopped. Either way the risk of unacceptable under-reporting would have
been considerably reduced.
Term of Reference Three
1.5 The Committee has concluded that the under-reporting which occurred in the Gisborne
region is evidence of a systemic issue for the National Cervical Screening Programme.
Dr Bottrill‟s practice at Gisborne Laboratories cannot be seen as an isolated case of
under-reporting. The factors relating to the delivery of cytological services in
New Zealand between 1990 and 1996 which the Committee has concluded led to the
unacceptable reporting in the Gisborne region, establish that the problem has a
systemic origin.
1.6 The Programme lacked the essential components of an effective cervical screening
programme when it was first established: it had no compulsory quality assurance of
laboratories reading cervical cytology; it had a poorly designed management structure
which split the responsibilities for parts of the Programme between various health
agencies which resulted in confusion and consequent failure to discharge
responsibilities; it had no quantitative performance standards against which to measure
the performance of the various parts of the Programme; it had no central computerised
registration system which would have allowed cytology, histology and cancer
morbidity and mortality data to be inter-linked for each woman participating in the
Programme; it failed to gather reliable relevant statistical information; it failed
9
routinely to monitor and evaluate all parts of the Programme‟s performance; it failed
to ensure there was the legal power to do what was needed for the Programme to be
effective; and it failed to exercise or to exercise properly legal powers that were
available to achieve this end; it did not have the legal authority it required to function
effectively and the existing legal authority it did have was not property exercised.
1.7 Because the Committee considers that there are systemic issues for the Programme, it
has reached the conclusion that the possibility that unacceptable under-reporting has
occurred elsewhere in New Zealand cannot be excluded.
Term of Reference Four
1.8 Changes that have been made to the Programme since Dr Bottrill‟s retirement in
March 1996 include the reconfiguration of the Register and its centralisation, thus
making it more effective. The result of these changes to the Register means that
technically data is now more easily available and more reliable for the purpose of
statistical analysis which can be used for monitoring the Programme. The technical
impediments to monitoring have now been removed. The laboratory accreditation
with an independent quality control agency has been compulsory for laboratories
reading cervical cytology since late 1996/early 1997. A new Medical Practitioners‟
Act was passed in 1995 and came into effect in 1996. This Act attempts to protect the
health and safety of the public, and it provides mechanisms to ensure public
practitioners are competent to practice medicine. The new Act introduces measures
which ensures that medical practitioners are, and remain, competent to practice in their
area of speciality. These provisions should assist in reducing the likelihood of a
pathologist practising in the same or a similar manner to Dr Bottrill.
Term of Reference Five
1.9 The Government is presently looking at legislative change to allow monitoring and
evaluation of the Programme to be carried out without the hindrance of legal obstacles
which have presently prevented this valuable exercise from being undertaken.
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Other Changes Agreed To Be Implemented By Government
1.10 Significant improvements have been made to the structure and delivery of the National
Cervical Screening Programme. An effort has been made to have in place an
operational policy with quality assurance standards which will enable the Programme
technically to be better monitored and evaluated than in the past. There will now be
quantitative performance indicators against which the Programme‟s performance can
be measured. The work that has been done on the redevelopment of the Programme
will go a long way to reducing the likelihood of an incident such as that which
occurred in Gisborne happening again.
Term of Reference Six
1.11 The changes to legislation which are contemplated in Term of Reference Five do not
in the Committee‟s view go far enough. The Committee is concerned that the
discussion about the proposed legislation is becoming protracted and delaying the
monitoring and evaluation of the Programme. The Committee considers that the
choice to be made is simple. The legislation that currently regulates the Programme
prohibits valuable information which is required for the monitoring and evaluation of
the Programme being disclosed to independent evaluation teams without the consent
of the women to whom the information relates. Unless this law is changed it is most
unlikely that any effective monitoring and evaluation in respect of laboratory
performance will proceed. The Committee considers that the time has come to
introduce legislative change through primary legislation which will ensure that the
Programme functions effectively and is safe for women. That requires legislation
which will allow now-protected information to be made available to independent
evaluation teams without the consent of women.
1.12 The Committee is also concerned to ensure that reconsideration is given to guidelines
under which ethics committees operate. In the Committee‟s view, the decisions of
ethics committees have unwittingly contributed to the delay in carrying out a
comprehensive monitoring and evaluation of the Programme by an independent
evaluation team. The Committee considers that the guidelines under which ethics
committees operate need to be rewritten to make it clear that exercises of auditing,
11
monitoring and evaluation are not within the consideration of ethics committees. The
Committee also considers that ethics committees may be having a detrimental affect
on independently funded evaluation exercises, and indeed on medical research in
respect of cervical cancer, and therefore recommends that the guidelines under which
they operate be reconsidered in this respect as well.
Term of Reference Seven
1.13 The Committee has been requested to urge the Government to consider an appropriate
method of compensating the women affected who can establish bona fide claims. The
Committee‟s view is that Term of Reference Seven does not allow it to make this
recommendation, and in any event it would be contrary to the philosophy of the
Accident Insurance Act 1998, which prohibits anyone in New Zealand from suing for
damages arising directly or indirectly out of personal injury covered by the Accident
Insurance Act or any of the former Acts under which accident compensation has been
dispensed in New Zealand. The women affected have suffered a medical
misadventure and in the Committee‟s view they are covered by the Accident Insurance
Act, or earlier accident compensation legislation, and therefore they cannot sue for
personal injury. Therefore they have no legal entitlement to compensation for
personal injury.
1.14 The Committee considers that the Kaitiaki Regulations require reconsideration. The
Committee has learnt of incidents where the Kaitiaki Regulations have delayed or
obstructed gaining information to Maori women‟s data on the National Cervical
Screening Register which would be useful for the purposes of statistical analysis and
monitoring and evaluating the Programme‟s performance. The Committee considers
that consideration should be given to changing the regulations to allowing independent
teams to have ready access to Maori women‟s data on the Register for the purposes of
monitoring and evaluating the Programme.
1.15 The Committee has learnt that the Programme has no direct control over smear-takers
and cannot therefore direct what information they provided to patients. The concern
the Committee has on learning this, is that the Register is presently designed as an opt-
off register, and in order for women to exercise their choice they must be told that they
12
have the right to opt-off. It is important that the Programme ensures that it has lines of
control which it can enforce to require smear-takers to advise women of their rights as
to whether or not they remain on the National Cervical Screening Register.
13
2. PROCEDURE
2.1 On 30 October 1999 the Committee of Inquiry had published notices in the public
notice column of the New Zealand Herald, Wanganui Chronicle, Nelson Mail, Even
Standard, Sunday Times (13 October), Otago Daily Times, Northern Advocate,
Waikato Times, Christchurch Press, Hawkes Bay Today, Gisborne Herald, Daily Post,
Bay of Plenty Times, Dominion and Evening Posts, inviting persons having an interest
to register their interest with the Committee of Inquiry and explaining how to access
information about the Inquiry by 0800 number, via email or through a website.
2.2 On 18 November 1999 the Committee of Inquiry held a preliminary conference at
Gisborne. This was followed by a further preliminary conference at Auckland on 19
November 1999. The purpose of these preliminary conferences was to explain the
scope and purpose of the inquiry, to discover the number of persons with an interest in
attending the inquiry hearings and to provide them with an opportunity to comment on
the procedures the Committee intended to follow. Subsequently Committee member
Druis Barrett and Hanne Janes, one of the counsel assisting, attended a number of
informal meetings and hui in the Gisborne region with the women affected by the
misread cervical smear tests and other persons with an interest in the inquiry to
provide further explanation about the inquiry. Then on 27 January 2000 a final pre-
hearing conference and hui was held at Pakirikiri Marae, Tokomaru Bay.
2.3 The Committee of Inquiry held public hearings at Gisborne between 10 April 2000
and 11 May 2000. It reconvened in Gisborne on 3 July 2000 and sat until 6 August
2000. It then reconvened in Gisborne to hear submissions from 18 September 2000
until 29 September 2000. The hearings were largely conducted in public. In some
cases persons who gave evidence wished parts of their evidence to be confidential and
in this case suppression orders were made, but otherwise the evidence was given in
public. Legal representation was permitted for those who requested it.
2.4 The Committee adopted an inquisitional approach to the inquiry where possible.
Persons who were given the status of parties or persons entitled to be heard under s.4A
of the Commissions of Inquiry Act 1908 were permitted to lead evidence as of right
14
and with the leave of the Committee to cross-examine other witnesses. Leave to
cross-examine was only granted when the Committee was satisfied that the area to be
covered in cross-examination was relevant to the terms of reference. The Committee
wishes to record that it was greatly assisted in its task by the evidence which the
parties and persons entitled to be heard adduced.
2.5 Representatives of the news media, (print, audio and visual), sought and were given
permission to cover and report on the Inquiry hearings. The evidence was also made
available on the Inquiry‟s internet website.
2.6 After the close of the public hearings the Ministry of Health/HFA filed further
evidence with the Committee to update it on the progress of various changes to the
National Cervical Screening Programme. This evidence was circulated among the
parties and persons having a recognised interest in being heard and they were given
the opportunity to file evidence and submissions in response if they so wished.
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3. BACKGROUND
3.1 The Minister of Health appointed the Committee of Inquiry in response to a growing
public concern that cervical smear tests read at Gisborne Laboratories may have been
misread with the result that cervical abnormalities were under-reported. These tests
were carried out as part of the National Cervical Screening Programme.
3.2 The National Cervical Screening Programme was set up in response to a
recommendation in the Report of the Cervical Cancer Inquiry 1988, which has come
to be known as the Cartwright Inquiry. During the 1980s there was an increase in
opportunistic cervical smear testing. Following on from this there was a call from
some health professionals for an organised cervical screening programme. One of the
medical controversies that came into focus before the Cartwright Inquiry was the value
of organised cervical screening. In New Zealand the controversy was resolved by the
recommendations in the Cartwright Report to institute organised cervical screening
and the decision made by the Government of the day to implement the
recommendations.
The Purpose Of Cervical Screening Programmes
3.3 Organised cervical screening is a systematic and co-ordinated programme designed to
invite all women who are eligible for screening to undergo periodic sampling of the
uterine cervix using the Pap test. The most frequent type of uterine cancer is a
carcinoma of squamous cell type. The cancer develops over time from a pre-
cancerous lesion. Pre-cancerous lesions have not invaded the tissues and are curable if
detected and treated. The Pap test is named for Dr George Papanicolaou who showed
that it was useful in detecting the abnormal cells shed from pre-cancerous squamous
lesions of the cervix. Pre-cancerous lesions detected by the Pap test are classified as
squamous intraepithelial lesions (SIL) and are subdivided into low-grade (LSIL) and
high-grade (HSIL) lesions. The lesions differ in the degree of cellular abnormality and
while both lesions can progress to cancer if untreated, the rate and interval varies.
Cells of HSIL are more abnormal and the lesions progresses to cancer more frequently
and faster than LSIL lesions. Pre-malignant lesions in biopsy samples of the cervix
are also classified as LSIL and HSIL. Sometimes, however they are classified as CIN
16
(cervical intraepithelial neoplasia) and depending on the degree of involvement of the
cervical lining by the abnormal cell proliferation, CIN is graded as CIN I (lower one
third of the lining), CIN II (lower two thirds of the lining) and CIN III (upper one third
or full thickness of the lining). Occasionally Arabic numerals are used instead of
Roman numerals. LSIL equates with CIN I and HSIL encompasses CIN II and CIN
III. The CIN terminology is sometimes used in addition or as a substitute for the SIL
terminology in the reporting of abnormal smear tests.
3.4 A screening programme can be an effective tool to reduce the incidence of cervical
cancer. If pre-cancerous abnormalities are detected and treated before they progress to
cervical cancer the outcome for the patient will usually be good. However, these
abnormalities are not easily detected by the patient or her clinician. Because they
display no symptoms or signs there is nothing to alert a woman and as the pre-
cancerous abnormalities are not visible to the naked eye her clinician is not likely to
detect them on any visual examination of the cervix. Regular cervical smear tests
should lead to the discovery of these abnormalities before the development of cancer.
A Bulletin of the World Health Organisation 64(4): 607-618 (1986) titled Control of
Cancer of the Cervix Uteri records that a 100% cure rate is possible if the presence of
the disease is detected, diagnosed and treated during the pre-invasive stage. The
European guidelines for quality assurance in cervical cancer screening, which were
issued in 1993, state that 91% of squamous cell invasive cervical cancer cases can be
avoided if women are screened every third year.
3.5 If a screening programme is to be successful cervical smear tests must be accurately
read by the laboratory. Reading cervical smear tests is not a precise science. The
interpretation of cervical smear tests is somewhat subjective and in some cases a
smear test can be open to different interpretations. Pathologists accept that errors can
occur and that occasionally a cervical smear test will be misread as a false negative or
a false positive. A false negative result is one, which fails to identify someone who
has a pre-cancerous abnormality or cancer of the cervix. A false positive result is one,
which incorrectly identifies someone as having a pre-cancerous abnormality or cancer
of the cervix. False positives will be detected because a positive smear test report will
usually be followed by a biopsy (the taking of a tissue sample from the cervix) and
examination of the sample would reveal no cervical abnormality. False negatives are
17
more difficult to detect as here an abnormal cervical smear test is misread as normal,
and so it may go undetected until the woman next has a cervical smear test or has a
biopsy of her cervix. A false positive cervical smear test can lead to a woman
undergoing an unnecessary medical intervention in order to obtain a sample of tissue
from her cervix. A false negative cervical smear test means the presence of a pre-
cancerous abnormality will go undiscovered; this leaves a woman vulnerable to
developing cervical cancer.
3.6 False negative reports do not only result from errors by pathologists or cytoscreeners.
Other reasons may be that the smear was not taken adequately or that even though the
smear was taken correctly none of the abnormal cells present were included. In a
screening programme where a woman is being screened at regular intervals a false
negative result will often be remedied by detection at the next screening. Cervical
cancer is usually a slow-developing disease and in most cases the single under-
reporting of a cervical smear test will not endanger a woman‟s health or life. Pre-
cancerous abnormalities of the cervix can regress naturally; and if there is no
regression, so long as the abnormality is detected at the next screening or before it has
progressed to cervical cancer it can usually be treated successfully. Though, the
longer the abnormality is left untreated the greater may be the thickness to which it has
involved the cervical lining, in which case the patient will undergo a more invasive
form of treatment than she may have undergone if the abnormality had been detected
sooner. However, if a series of cervical smear tests of a patient are under-reported the
consequences for that patient can be dire as once the disease has progressed to cervical
cancer the necessary treatment has a severe impact on the patient and its outcome is
more problematic.
3.7 Another respect in which accurate smear test reports are important is their impact on
how a patient is treated. Because of the possibility of regression, particularly in the
case of LSIL (a low-grade abnormality), the medical response to discovery is often to
wait and see what develops. As HSIL (high-grade abnormality) has a higher rate of
progression to cancer and a lower regression rate, standard practice is to refer the
woman for colposcopic examination. Standard practice in New Zealand was for the
pathologist reading the abnormal smear test to include in the report a statement with
regard to the further management of the woman. This statement was dictated by the
18
smear findings. The colposcope is an instrument that magnifies the cervix and allows
easier visualisation and biopsy of cervical abnormalities. Treatment is primarily
guided by the result of the biopsy. Treatment options for pre-cancerous lesions
include ablation of the lesion using laser or cryotherapy. Treatment for some lesions
may require wider removal of the abnormal tissue and this may involve a cone biopsy,
which can be performed using a knife, laser or electrocautery.
3.8 The Committee has learnt that some women regard these investigations and
procedures as intrusive and unpleasant. Consequently a clinician will be reluctant to
subject a patient to these procedures if an alternative approach is tenable. A clinician
has to weigh the consequences for the patient of delaying investigation against the
intrusion the patient may feel if referred for further investigation. Thus it is important
for the patient‟s clinician to be given a smear test report which identifies accurately the
grade of any abnormality that is present.
3.9 Because under-reporting of cervical smear tests can not be avoided the difficulty for
health professionals and authorities is to be able to distinguish the false negative tests
that are an accepted feature of cervical screening from unacceptable under-reporting.
Errors of the latter type can all too easily be mistaken for false negatives which come
within the acceptable range. Until a pattern of errors, which suggests something worse
than the accepted false negative rate comes to light, an unacceptable level of under-
reporting is difficult to detect. By the time such errors are detected the health of the
women whose cervical smear tests have been under-reported may be in jeopardy.
Detection of unacceptable under-reporting is made more difficult in New Zealand by
the absence of any standard which defines the range of acceptable under-reporting.
The consequence is that unacceptable under-reporting may go unrecognised until such
time as it becomes glaringly obvious.
3.10 Cases of symptomatic cancer of the cervix, especially of advanced disease, in a
screened population can be described as failures of a screening programme. The
evidence the Committee heard from women who had participated in the National
Cervical Screening Programme for a number of years and whose cervical smear tests
had been under-reported makes plain the human consequences of a screening
19
programme failure. Their evidence was a stark reminder of the injurious impact the
failure of a screening programme can have on its participants.
The Impact Of Cervical Cancer On The Patient
3.11 Some of the women affected by under-reporting of their smear tests were content to
give their evidence in public and for their names to be published. Others were willing
to give their evidence in public but they wanted their identities to remain confidential.
The Committee made orders protecting the identities of those women who requested
this protection. In their cases they were each given a number and this was how they
were identified throughout the hearing. To enable the reader to appreciate the impact
of cervical cancer on the patient the Committee has included in the report details of the
experiences and the condition of some of the women affected. As these details include
very personal information the Committee has chosen not to identify any of these
women by name in the report.
3.12 Witness A was 31 years old when she appeared before the Committee. She was
diagnosed as having cervical cancer when she was approximately 26 years old. At this
time she was married, a mother of three children and she was working as a nurse. She
and her husband hoped to have one more child. On 6 December 1994 she consulted
her general practitioner as she was experiencing heavy painful periods, bleeding
between periods and bleeding after intercourse. She was concerned that these were
signs of cervical cancer. A cervical smear test was taken and on 7 December was
reported as “ abnormal squamous cells present showing changes of a high-grade
squamous intraepithelial lesion (CIN 2 or 3).” She was told by her general practitioner
that her smear test result showed she had a pre-cancerous condition. Because witness
A thought her condition was deteriorating she attempted to obtain an appointment with
a gynaecologist. She said that she had difficulty obtaining an early appointment as she
was told that she was a non-urgent case. She attributed this to her 7 December smear
test report. She ultimately saw a gynaecologist on 20 February 1995; at this time a
colposcopy was performed and she also had laser treatment to remove some cancerous
cells. On 23 February she received a phone call from the gynaecologist; she was told
she had cervical cancer and that she would need a hysterectomy. She said this news
20
came as a tremendous blow to her as she and her husband were planning to have
another child.
3.13 She subsequently underwent a hysterectomy and also had 36 lymph nodes removed.
Her ovaries were left, owing to her young age. Her left leg was partially paralysed and
has been permanently damaged as a result of the operation. Six weeks after the
hysterectomy she went for a follow up examination. At this time she was informed
that the cancer had spread into her lymph nodes, that her prognosis was not good, and
that without further treatment her survival rate was 50/50. She was given six weeks of
external beam radiotherapy followed by internal beam radiotherapy; this treatment
resulted in the destruction of her ovaries.
3.14 Witness A regularly had cervical smear tests. Apart from the smear test report of 7
December 1994 which had been reported as CIN 2 or 3, her other smear tests had all
been reported as normal. She retrieved four of her smear tests. They had all been read
by Dr Bottrill of Gisborne Laboratories Limited. Another smear test, that Medlab
Hamilton had reported as normal in 1991, has not been reviewed, and, therefore, the
status of this smear test is unknown. The tests were sent to a laboratory in Auckland
for review. A review of witness A‟s smear tests showed:
(i) A smear in November 1990 reported by Dr Bottrill as low-grade with a
management recommendation that a repeat smear was required. Four
independent pathologists who reviewed the smear test reported it as
high-grade. A cytology review panel comprising five laboratories also
read the smear test; four of the five laboratories reported it as high-
grade, the other reported it as normal.
(ii) A smear test in December 1990 reported by Dr Bottrill as normal. The
four independent pathologists read it as high-grade. All the laboratories
in the cytology review panel reported it as high-grade.
(iii) A smear test in May 1992 reported by Dr Bottrill as normal. The four
independent pathologists reported it as high-grade. Four of the five
21
laboratories in the cytology review panel reported it as high-grade; the
other read it as normal.
(iv) A smear test in December 1994 reported by Dr Bottrill as high-grade
CIN 2 or 3. Three of the four independent pathologists reported it as
invasive carcinoma, one reported it as suggestive of carcinoma, and
when the cytology review panel reviewed it, five out of five
laboratories reported it as invasive carcinoma.
3.15 Had any of witness A‟s smear tests in 1990 or 1992 been recognised then as
displaying a high-grade abnormality, her disease may have been detected at a pre-
cancerous or early cancerous phase. Her treatment options would have been less
invasive and associated with lesser morbidity. It may be that the abnormality could
have been removed from her cervix, and her uterus and ovaries left intact. When she
gave evidence to the Committee she was a 31 year old woman who had lost her uterus
and her ovaries, she had a permanently damaged left leg, and she was going to require
hormonal therapy for a large part of the remainder of her life.
3.16 Witness B is a married woman aged 39 years, she has four children aged 17, 15, 12
and 11. Since 1989 she had regularly had cervical smear tests. She has been
registered on the National Cervical Screening Register since 1992. In April 1996 she
went to her GP because she felt unwell and she was experiencing a constant
unpleasant discharge from her vagina. In August 1996 she returned to her general
practitioner as she was experiencing incontinence. On 4 October 1996 a smear test
was taken and reported by the Gisborne hospital laboratory as “ atypical glandular
cells of uncertain significance present. Repeat smear six months.” She was advised
that she did not have cancer and she was not to worry. Because the problem she was
experiencing in the vaginal area did not clear up, she was referred to a gynaecologist,
this resulted in a dilatation and curettage in order to sample the endometrial lining of
the body of the uterus and cautery of the cervix on 10 March 1997.
3.17 Witness B‟s smear history is as follows:
22
(i) Smear test November 1989 reported by Dr Bottrill as normal; test not
available for re-examination
(ii) Smear test April 1989 reported by Dr Bottrill as normal; test not
available for re-examination
(iii) Smear test January 1992 reported by Dr Bottrill as normal; on re-
examination reported by Douglass Hanly Moir Pathology as high-grade
(iv) Smear test April 1995 reported by Dr Bottrill as normal; on re-
examination reported by Douglass Hanly Moir Pathology as high-grade
3.18 On 21 March 1997 witness B learnt that the biopsy results showed she had cervical
cancer. On 16 April 1997 she had a radical hysterectomy and a bilateral pelvic lymph
node dissection with conservation of her ovaries. Subsequently on 4 October 1999 she
was advised that her smear test of January 1992, which had been originally read as
normal had been re-read by Douglass Hanly Moir Pathology as high-grade/CIN 3. On
1 March 2000 witness B received a letter from the Health Funding Authority advising
her that her smear tests of January 1992 and April 1995 had been re-read as high-
grade. Her general practitioner wrote to her advising that it was likely that between
1992 to 1997 there were pre-cancerous abnormalities on her cervix:
“It appears that your original smear test in 1992 was misread and had this
been read correctly at the time it is possible you may not have developed a
cancer of the cervix and may not have required a radical hysterectomy.
However, at that time you probably would have required some form of
treatment such as a cone biopsy to treat the CIN 3 which is likely to have
been present then.”
3.19 Witness C gave evidence to the Committee during the public hearings which ran from
April until May 2000. At that time she was 53 years of age; married with five
children. When the committee resumed its hearings in July she had died; her death can
be attributed to cervical cancer. Witness C had smears taken in 1975, 1995 and 1996.
Her smear test result for 1995 was reported by Dr Bottrill as normal. Her smear test
result for 1996 was reported by the Gisborne hospital laboratory as normal. In March
1999 she visited her general practitioner as she had pain in her pelvis and legs, she felt
23
very unwell and she had some vaginal bleeding. Between March and June the vaginal
bleeding increased. By 14 July she was bleeding heavily. On 14 July an attempt was
made to take a smear but this was abandoned, as the smear taker was not able to access
her cervix. On 18 August 1999 she saw a gynaecologist who performed a colposcopy
and biopsy. A scan was also taken; this showed a tumour in her uterus. The
gynaecologist advised her that she might have cancer. On 25 August 1999 she
described herself as having terrible pain in the region of her stomach and her stomach
was swelling. She managed to continue to go to work with the assistance of
medication to relieve her pain.
3.20 On 26 August 1999 witness C was admitted to hospital for an operation. On the
morning of the operation she was told that she had cancer of the cervix and the
operation was abandoned; she was to have radiotherapy instead. On 2 September
1999 she had another biopsy; at this time she was told that Dr Bottrill had misread her
smear in 1995, that he had read it as normal when it was high-grade, and that if he had
read it correctly she could have been treated at that time. As the re-examination of
smear tests the Health Funding Authority had carried out was only confined to smear
tests read at Gisborne Laboratories the status of the 1996 smear read at Gisborne
hospital laboratory is unknown. The Committee heard from more than one expert
witness that once cervical cancer is present smear tests become very inaccurate and for
that reason they are not used to diagnose cervical cancer. By 1996 witness C‟s
condition may have advanced to the point where a smear test was no longer reliable;
equally it is possible that the 1996 test was also misread. If the smear test was misread
the misreading may be explainable as being a false negative which can occur in any
laboratory or it may be an indication of unacceptable under-reporting from another
laboratory. Unless the 1996 smear is re-examined or until a cancer audit of her case is
carried out the answer to this question will not be known.
3.21 On 6 September 1999 witness C and her husband went to Palmerston North where for
six weeks she had radiotherapy. She felt tired and sick. Once the tumour had shrunk,
two smaller tumours were found behind it. One was on her bladder, the other on the
top of her bowel. In November 1999 she received caesium rod treatment. In the last
week of February 2000 it was discovered that she was passing faeces through her
vagina, she was running a high temperature and she was experiencing a lot of pain.
24
Because of the ongoing pain she went into hospital in March 2000 and she had a
colostomy. She told the Committee that she now felt useless as she was, “unable to be
there”, for her family, that she had been forced to stop working which had placed a
heavy financial burden on her family and that one of her daughters had been obliged to
return to the family home to help care for her:
“Since my operation in March 2000 it has been even harder. I now have a
bag that I have to clean and empty out. It just gets too much, but I suppose
when I get used to it I will be all right. Each week I have to come into
Gisborne Hospital for a check up. I continue to have good days and bad
days. On the bad days I find it very hard to get out of bed. I have a lot of
feelings that I cannot put into words. I feel anger and frustration – why me,
why did this happen to my family?
3.22 Witness D was 39 years old when she gave evidence. She is the mother of four
children aged 19, 11, 5 and 3. She first had a smear on 26 August 1994, which was
read by Dr Bottrill as normal. In August 1996 while she was in labour and due to give
birth to her youngest child an internal examination of her pelvic region gave the
midwife concerns about her health. Two days after her son was born she had a
colposcopy and biopsy. Two days later, at a time when her son was only four days
old, she was told that she had cervical cancer. On 23 September she was to have a
radical hysterectomy, however, when the surgeon operated and saw the extent of her
cancer, which had spread into her pelvic walls, he removed only one lymph node. She
was told that radiotherapy and caesium rod treatment was the only way she could hope
to improve. In October 1996 she had eight weeks of radiotherapy treatment and
caesium rod treatment at Palmerston North Hospital. She returned home on
6 December 1996. The treatment made her feel very tired, nauseous and she had
diarrhoea. She was unable to look after her children. At that time her children were
16 years old, 8 years old, 2½ and 5 months of age; all of them wanted and needed her
attention.
3.23 In October 1997 Witness D‟s marriage broke up. She said her husband left because he
could not cope. In November 1997 she was advised that there was some hope that she
would be all right. However, in January 1998 she felt a small lump at the edge of her
vagina and when a colposcopy and biopsy was formed she was told that she was
terminally ill, that there was nothing more that could be done for her, and she should
get her affairs in order. But, she insisted on exploring the possibility of further
25
treatment and so she was referred to a specialist at Waikato Hospital. The specialist
advised her that her only chance was to undergo a total pelvic clearance. The pelvic
clearance was performed on 24 March 1998; witness D‟s cervix, ovaries, vagina and
bladder were removed. From that time on she had to use a urostomy bag. While she
was in hospital her children were placed in the care of Presbyterian Support Services.
3.24 On March 1999 she received a request from a member of the Cancer Society to have
her smear test re-read. The smear was re-read on 21 April 1999 by Medlab Hamilton
and was reported as high-grade. Later the smear was re-read by Douglass Hanly Moir
Pathology who also reported it as high-grade. In November 1999 witness D was
admitted to hospital with severe stomach pains caused by the adhesions and scar tissue
from the pelvic clearance. On a second visit in November 1999 a routine chest x-ray
discovered a lump in her lung. On 17 December 1999 a tumour was found in her lung
and that, together with an infected lymph node, was removed. She was advised that
the lump in her lung was a secondary cancer to the cervical cancer. She told the
Committee that the damage to her children and herself has been far reaching.
3.25 The Committee also heard evidence from the daughter of witness E, who had died on
February 1999 of cervical cancer at the age of 42. She was a married woman with
four children. Witness E had been a nurse and her daughter described her as very
health conscious. In 1997 she was told that she had cervical cancer. This bewildered
her as she had regularly had smears every two to three years. Her smear test reports
for 1988, 1991, 1993 and 1996 were provided to the Committee. Dr Bottrill had read
the smear tests of August 1988, September 1991 and November 1993 and he had
reported them all as normal. The smear test of September 1996 had been read at the
Gisborne hospital laboratory and reported as “ specimen is satisfactory although
evaluation is limited by scant squamous epithelial cells. There is no evidence of
cellular abnormality. Please repeat the smear in six months.” At the time her smear
was taken in September 1996 her general practitioner recorded in witness E‟s medical
file that she was having “period problems and discharge.” Witness E made a return
visit her general practitioner in March 1997 and at that time her file shows the
condition she had described in September was still present. Her general practitioner
referred her to a gynaecologist. In April 1997 witness E was seen by a gynaecologist
26
who described her in his report as experiencing pelvic pain, heavy bleeding during her
periods, some inter-menstrual bleeding and constipation.
3.26 Between 1997 and her death in February 1999 witness E had a number of invasive
medical interventions to relieve the various symptoms she was experiencing. Her
symptoms included heavy bleeding, pelvic pain and vaginal discharge. An operation
report of 29 December 1997 describes her cervix as being “ completely replaced by
necrotic tissue and proliferating tumour.” To relieve this she underwent an
embolisation of the blood vessels supplying the tumour. On 27 January 1998 she was
admitted to hospital with severe vaginal bleeding. Another embolisation was
performed. On 31 March 1998 a medical report describes her as having:
“ a necrotic mass at the top of the vagina from which foul smelling discharge
drains copiously. …The odour is of concern to …[witness E] as is her need
for higher doses of morphine which she equates with increasing pain.”
3.27 In November 1998 during a visit to Christchurch she became seriously ill from renal
failure; this was seen as a consequence of an extension of her pelvic malignancy. She
had a nephrostomy and this meant her left kidney no longer functioned. By January
1999 she had developed a rectovaginal fistula and on 28 January 1999 to remedy the
fistula she had a colostomy.
3.28 Witness F was 27 years of age when she gave evidence. She had been married for 7
years. She and her husband had no children but they had planned to have a family.
However, on 1 February 2000 she had undergone a radical hysterectomy as she had
early, (stage 1B), carcinoma of the cervix. She had registered on the National Cervical
Screening Register in 1993. She had a regular history of smears:
(i) In January 1991 and August 1991 smear tests were reported as normal by
Dr Bottrill; these tests were subsequently re-read by Douglass Hanly Moir
Pathology as normal.
(ii) In June 1992 a smear test was reported as normal by Dr Bottrill; this test was
subsequently read by Douglass Hanly Moir Pathology and reported as
“abnormal squamous cells present, a high-grade lesion cannot be excluded.”
27
(iii) In May 1993 a smear test was reported by Medical Diagnostics of Palmerston
North as “scanty evidence of human papilloma virus present; specimen
satisfactory for evaluation but limited by no endocervical component; outside
normal limits, repeat in three months”. This smear test was re-read by Medlab
Central of Palmerston North in March 2000 and reported as showing evidence
of human papilloma virus and no dysplasia detected.
(iv) In January 1994 a smear test was reported as normal by the Gisborne hospital
laboratory. This smear test has not been re-examined.
(v) In June 1996 a smear test was reported as normal by the Gisborne hospital
laboratory. This smear test was re-read in March 2000 by Medlab Central; it
was reported as normal.
(vi) In October 1997 a smear test was reported as normal by Medlab Central. The
Committee was told that this smear had been misplaced and so it was not re-
examined.
(vii) In June 1999 a smear test was reported by Medlab Hamilton as high-grade
CIN3. This diagnosis led to a histological examination in August 1999.
Witness F‟s histology was diagnosed by Medlab Central as CIN 3. When it
was re-read at National Women‟s hospital in December 1999 the histology was
diagnosed as squamous cell carcinoma stage 1B.
3.29 Witness F had a radical hysterectomy and pelvic node dissection. Her ovaries were
conserved. This experience has had a traumatic impact on witness F and her husband.
For her, there has been the physical pain that accompanies cervical cancer and its
treatment. For her husband there has been the disruption to his family life and future
plans and the reminder of the consequences of this disease as his cousin died of
cervical cancer. Witness F and her husband had delayed starting a family until they
were financially secure. They are now making inquiries about having children
through a surrogacy programme. Their marriage is under strain. Witness F told the
28
Committee “I worry because [my husband] is still able to have his own biological
children and I do not know what this will do to our relationship.”
The Unknown Scope Of The Under-Reporting at Gisborne
3.30 When the Committee first heard the evidence from women affected by misread smear
tests it was disquieted to learn that in some cases interspersed with smear tests read as
normal at Gisborne Laboratories and later found to be abnormal by the Sydney re-
read, were smear tests that had been read as normal at other laboratories. The Sydney
re-read of smear tests organised by the Health Funding Authority only involved a re-
examination of smear tests read at Gisborne Laboratories. In some cases, for example
witnesses A, C and F, they had some normal smear test reports from other laboratories
that came after smear tests reports from Gisborne Laboratories. The Committee was,
therefore, concerned to know if these smear tests from other laboratories indicated a
more widespread under-reporting problem.
3.31 During the first session of the Committee‟s public hearings it was advised that
Professor David Skegg was attempting to carry out a cancer audit of all the cases of
cervical cancer from the Gisborne region. At that time Professor Skegg thought this
was the best way to determine if there had been an unacceptable level of under-
reporting in the region. A cancer audit would also have revealed any errors in the
reporting of other laboratories. However, the cancer audit could not proceed, as
Professor Skegg was unable to gain access to the information he needed to carry out
the audit. More will be said about this in the Committee‟s report on term of reference
three.
3.32 During the second session of the public hearings, the Committee learnt that Professor
Skegg could not gain access to the information he needed for the audit to proceed.
The Committee, therefore, proposed an approach which it considered would allow the
information to be accessed. The Committee had been set up under s.47 of the Health
& Disability Act. Pursuant to s.47 (3) the Minister had extended the Committee‟s
power by giving it the power of a Commission of Inquiry under the Commission of
Inquiry Act 1908. As the information was relevant to the terms of reference the
Committee considered the obstacles Professor Skegg had encountered could be
29
overcome if the Committee obtained the information by exercising its power under
s.4D of the Commissions of Inquiry Act to subpoena the Director-General of Health to
produce the information to it. The Committee could then appoint Professor Skegg as
its agent under s4A and provide him with the information in order to carry out the
cancer audit. Because the Committee had become concerned about the statistical
information on cervical cancer incidence produced to it for other regions (Eastern Bay
of Plenty and Northland) it had intended that the audit cover those regions as well as a
region where the registered incidence of cervical cancer was low. Hence, the
Committee issued a subpoena to the Director-General of Health requiring her to
produce to it personal information of certain persons registered on the Cancer Register
and the National Cervical Screening Register. It also suggested to the Ministry of
Health that another way to obtain the information needed to enable the cancer audit to
take place would be to appoint Professor Skegg or any other qualified person as a
separate committee of inquiry under s.47 with the extended powers of a commission of
inquiry.
3.33 However, by the second session of the public hearings Professor Skegg had reached
the view that there was already sufficient evidence before the Committee to enable it
to reach a conclusion on whether or not there had been an unacceptable level of under-
reporting. For this reason he saw no need to proceed with his audit of cases of cancer
in the Gisborne region. Nevertheless, the Committee continued to want the
information sought in the subpoena as it considered that an audit of cervical cancer
cases in three other regions would assist it to reach a view on term of reference three
as to whether or not there was a systemic problem as regards the National Cervical
Screening Programme.
3.34 The Ministry of Health provided information from the Cancer Registry. However, it
refused to provide information from the National Cervical Screening Register. It
contended that the Committee could not gain access to this information by using its
powers under s.4D of the Commissions of Inquiry Act. The Committee had considered
referring this question to the High Court for resolution pursuant to s.10 of the
Commissions of Inquiry Act. In the end it did not do so as the Health and Disability
Services Act was about to be repealed and there was no provision similar to s.47(3) in
the draft version of the replacement legislation which was made available to the
30
Committee. This would have meant that a court ruling on the power of a committee of
inquiry under s.47 to obtain this information under subpoena would have been of
academic interest only.
3.35 In addition the Committee‟s concerns were somewhat allayed by the knowledge that
the Ministry of Health‟s national evaluation of the National Screening Programme,
which the Committee was informed would soon be underway, included a cancer audit.
This would reveal any problems with other laboratories. However since the third
session of the public hearings which took place in September the Committee has learnt
that there has been little or no progress with the national evaluation. The
circumstances surrounding this are more fully discussed in the report under term of
reference three. Here it is sufficient to say that the national evaluation, which was first
contracted for in June 1997, has still not been fully completed. The audit of cases of
cervical cancer has not been carried out. The persons who originally formed the team
responsible for the evaluation have resigned and the Ministry of Health is in the
process of engaging other persons to carry out this task and is attempting to frame the
evaluation in such a way that it can overcome the obstacles to obtaining certain
information which up to the present time have stalled the evaluation. The result of all
this is that the questions, which arise from the other laboratories‟ reports on smear
tests for women in the Gisborne region, remain unanswered. Until an audit of these
women‟s cases is carried out, whether or not other laboratories under-reported their
smear tests will remain unknown.
The Response To The Under-Reporting Problem
3.36 Initially the nature and scope of the problem in the Gisborne region was not realised.
Some persons thought that the under-reported smear tests from Gisborne Laboratories
could be explained as the usual run of false negative tests which any pathologist can
expect to make. But, as more errors came to light, others began to think that
something more serious had occurred.
3.37 On 7 September 1995 witness A had successfully established a claim for medical
misadventure before the Accident Compensation Commission. She also filed a
complaint with the Medical Council. Her complaint was upheld and Dr Bottrill was
31
found guilty of conduct unbecoming a medical practitioner under the Medical
Practitioners Act 1968. Witness A‟s case had been drawn to the attention of the
Cancer Society‟s local representative in Gisborne, and the circumstances of her case
(but it seems not her identity) were also communicated to the regional co-ordinator of
the National Cervical Screening Programme. In 1996 Witness A commenced a civil
proceeding in the High Court against Doctor Bottrill. She claimed that the misreading
of her cervical smear tests was negligent. The claim failed as the evidence before the
High Court did not support an award of exemplary damages, as these are only awarded
to punish the defendant in cases where the negligence is gross. On 19 March 1999 the
High Court found that Doctor Bottrill had acted negligently and that were it not for the
Accident Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 1992 which prohibits awards of
compensatory damages for personal injury, including medical misadventure, Witness
A would have been awarded substantial compensatory damages. The judgment reads:
“I have no doubt that Dr B was guilty of negligence. Indeed, it would be
open to a court to find negligence on the basis of one badly read slide as in
O’Shea v Sullivan and Macquarie Pathology (1994) Aust Torts Reports 81-
336. In jurisdictions where compensation is available on the establishment of
fault, Mrs A would undoubtedly recover substantial damages for both her
economic and non-economic loss.”
3.38 The High Court had granted Witness A name suppression and so her identity and the
region in which she and Doctor Bottrill lived could not be published, nevertheless,
there was extensive publicity about the nature of the High Court proceedings. This
had the effect of encouraging other women whose cervical smear tests had been read
by Doctor Bottrill to come forward. In March 1999 the barrister who had acted for
Witness A wrote to the Ministry of Health/Health Funding Authority outlining his
concerns for the safety of women who had had their cervical smear tests read by
Doctor Bottrill. By this time others including the medical officer of Health of
Tairawhiti Healthcare, Dr Bruce Duncan, were becoming concerned about the
possibility that Dr Bottrill had misread a number of cervical smear tests.
3.39 The Health Funding Authority began consulting with various persons on the need for a
re-examination of the cervical smear tests read at Gisborne Laboratories. It prepared
an initial project brief that contemplated having the cervical smear tests of the women
considered to be most at risk re-examined. The impression it gained from meeting
with the members of the Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia was that, apart
32
from considerations of maintaining confidence in the National Screening Programme,
a re-examination of the smear tests was unnecessary. However, as the project brief
became more widely distributed it became clear that others thought differently. No
clear consensus view emerged. Some persons thought the scope of the proposed re-
examination did not go far enough, some supported what the Health Funding
Authority proposed and others thought nothing should be done. The Health Funding
Authority‟s response was to set up a multi-disciplinary expert advisory group. The
group included Dr Brian Cox, an epidemiologist, Dr Ronald Jones, a specialist in
gynaecological oncology, Dr Norman Fitzgerald, a pathologist, and Dr Bruce Duncan.
The Committee was told by Ms Tracey Mellor who gave evidence for the Health
Funding Authority that at a meeting on 12 May 1999 the advisory group came to
consensus fairly rapidly that a full re-examination of the smear tests was required and
that there was no alternative. The Health Funding Authority had not contemplated an
exercise of this magnitude. However, the advice of the advisory group was accepted
that same day and on 13 May 1999 the Health Funding Authority issued a press
release to inform the public of its decision.
3.40 Once the Health Funding Authority decided to have the cervical smear tests read at
Gisborne Laboratories re-examined it moved quickly to implement its decision. It
engaged Douglass Hanly Moir Pathology of Sydney to carry out the exercise. It also
took various steps to alert women who were potentially at risk to that possibility.
Once the results from Douglass Hanly Moir became available the Health Funding
Authority realised that the under-reporting appeared to be extensive. It took various
steps to respond to wider concerns which the re-examination of the smear tests from
Gisborne Laboratories had drawn to its attention. The Committee has not addressed
the response of the Health Funding Authority in any detail, as it has not considered it
to be relevant to answering any of the specific terms of reference. However, the
Committee records how impressed it has been with the Health Funding Authority‟s
response to what occurred in the Gisborne region and how extremely hard working its
officers were in carrying out their role in this response.
33
4. TERM OF REFERENCE ONE
Has there been an unacceptable level of under-reporting in consequence of misreading and/or
mis-reporting of abnormalities in cervical smears in the Gisborne region?
4.1 The Committee of Inquiry is satisfied that there has been an unacceptable level of
under-reporting of abnormalities in cervical smear tests in the Gisborne region during
the period from 1991 to March 1996. The Committee has only heard evidence in
regard to cervical smear test readings by Gisborne Laboratories Limited. It has heard
no evidence which would have allowed it to determine whether or not there had been
under-reporting of cervical smear tests read in the laboratory at Gisborne Hospital and
therefore it is unable to comment on the performance of that laboratory‟s reading of
cervical smear tests during the relevant period. Its finding on the presence and the
level of under-reporting of cervical smear tests in the Gisborne region is based only
upon an analysis of the performance of Gisborne Laboratories.
4.2 Because the terms of reference directed the Committee to look into the reading of
abnormalities in cervical smear tests in the Gisborne region prior to March 1996 it has
not heard sufficient evidence on this topic post March 1996 to be able to comment on
laboratory performance since then. It has heard no evidence to suggest that there has
been an unacceptable level of under-reporting of cervical smear tests from the
Gisborne region since March 1996. However, as a comprehensive evaluation of the
performance of the National Cervical Screening Programme has never been completed
and laboratory cervical smear test reporting is still not routinely monitored the
Committee considers that the quality of cervical smear test reporting for this later
period is unknown.
4.3 Dr Bottrill read most of the cervical smear tests that were carried out in Gisborne
Laboratories. There were times when either due to Dr Bottrill‟s absence on leave or
because extra help was needed locum pathologists were used to read the cervical
smear tests. However, the evidence shows that the reading of cervical smear tests by
these persons can not account for the under-reporting which has occurred.
34
4.4 By the end of the inquiry hearings there was clear evidence before the Committee that
among cervical smear tests that were carried out in Gisborne Laboratories, during the
period under consideration positive tests had had been under-reported to an
unacceptable extent. Initially, the task of determining whether or not there had been
an unacceptable level of under-reported cervical smear tests in the Gisborne Region
seemed intractable. The reading of smear tests is based upon a microscopic evaluation
of the smear test by one or more observers. Evaluation is prone to human error for a
number of reasons, chief amongst them being the difficulty in consistently maintaining
the high level of concentration needed to detect the abnormal cells and also because
the interpretation of the abnormal cell is somewhat subjective. Some under-reporting
of cervical smear tests in consequence of misreading and/or misreporting is therefore
inevitable. Even in well run laboratories with state-of-the-art technology and
appropriate quality control systems cervical smear tests can be under-reported.
4.5 Failure of the laboratory to detect pre-cancer or cervical cancer cell changes when the
abnormal cells are actually present in the smear test is referred to as a false negative
result. A false negative result is defined in a number of ways, and consequently the
false negative rate can be measured in a number of ways. One approach is to measure
how many high-grade lesions confirmed by biopsy had a negative smear test report 6
months prior to that biopsy. Another is to re-read all or a proportion of a laboratory‟s
negative smears to measure how many were actually abnormal. While there are
published standards for false negative rates using these definitions in other countries,
from the evidence given, the Committee understood that the false negative rate of any
laboratory could only be compared to another laboratory or a published standard if the
methodologies for measuring the false negative rate were the same. While the
Committee was not specifically charged with investigating the over-reporting of
cervical smear abnormalities in the Gisborne region, this form of laboratory error, ie
the reporting of a cellular abnormality when none is present in the test, did come into
evidence during the Inquiry. This type of error is also called a false positive result and
similar to a false negative result can be defined and measured in a number of ways.
Published standards are also in existence in some countries. The same caution must be
used when comparing false positive rates from different laboratories and published
standards as is used when comparing false negative rates.
35
4.6 The Committee‟s task was made even more difficult by the fact that standards did not
exist for New Zealand and the methodologies used by the Health Funding Authority to
determine the false negative rate of Gisborne Laboratories were not comparable to
those of published methodologies. In some countries with established screening
programmes quantitative standards for reporting cervical smear tests have been set to
provide a measurement of laboratory performance. During the time that Dr Bottrill
was in practice the National Cervical Screening Programme imposed no quantitative
standards on laboratory performance. Apart from extreme cases of under-reporting,
which on any view would be unacceptable, without clearly set standards against which
to measure a laboratory‟s performance it is not easy to distinguish unacceptable under-
reporting from the accepted level of under-reporting that is inherent in cervical smear
evaluation.
4.7 The absence of quantitative standards over the relevant period and the inevitability of
some under-reporting have meant that the Committee of Inquiry has had to determine
for itself what is an unacceptable level of under-reporting of cervical smear tests. The
Committee was advised by more than one expert witness of the need for it to take a
common sense view of the matter. The Committee agrees with this advice. In the end
it has chosen to consider the combined effect of a number of indicators to assist it to
report on term of reference one. The Committee recognises that no single indicator
may be sufficient to reach a conclusion on the level of under-reporting, however, it
considers that the combined effect of these indicators convinced it that there had been
an unacceptable level of under-reporting. The Committee considered that to reach a
common sense view it would adopt the test the common law uses to determine civil
issues: namely the balance of probabilities. However, having heard all the evidence
the Committee was in no doubt whatsoever that there had been unacceptable under-
reporting.
4.8 The Committee has received evidence from more than one source which shows that at
Gisborne Laboratories there was a failure to read correctly the cervical smear tests of a
large number of women in the Gisborne region and that many of these women went on
to develop cervical cancer which could have been prevented if their pre-cancer had
been detected earlier on. When the results of the re-examination of Gisborne cervical
smear tests by Douglass Hanly Moir Pathology (the Sydney re-read) are compared
36
with the original smear test reports from Gisborne Laboratories the high level of
under-reporting becomes apparent. In total 22,976 slides were sent to Sydney for re-
examination. Of these slides Dr Bottrill had originally read 20,860 and the locums,
employed by Gisborne Laboratories, had read 2,116. From these figures, which
appear in exhibit TM/HFA/097, it can be seen that the impact of the locums‟ reading
at Gisborne Laboratories was negligible.
4.9 The Committee has had the benefit of hearing from a number of expert witnesses
whose evidence on this term of reference has been of great assistance to the
Committee. The witnesses included:
(i) Dr Annabelle Farnsworth MB BS(Hons), the director of cytopathology at
Douglass Hanly Moir Pathology;
(ii) Dr Euphemia McGoogan MB ChB, member of the Royal College of
Pathologists. Her area of special expertise is cervical cytopathology. She is
currently Pathology Patient Services Director for the Lothian University
Hospitals NHS Trust in Edinburgh and as such is responsible for the largest
combined morbid anatomy, histopathology and cytopathology service in the
UK;
(ii) Professor David Skegg BMedSc; ChB (Otago); DPhil (Oxon); FFPHM;
FAFPHM; FRSNZ, Professor of Preventive and Social Medicine at the
University of Otago Medical School. He has carried out extensive research on
the causes and control of cancer.
(iii) Dr Brian Cox BSc (Hons) MB ChB PhD, specialist in public health medicine
and an epidemiologist. He is employed by the University of Otago as a Senior
Research Fellow and he is the director of the Hugh Adam Cancer
Epidemiology Unit, Department of Preventive and Social Medicine, University
of Otago Medical School. He is a Fellow of the Australasian Faculty of Public
Health Medicine and he is registered as a specialist in public health medicine.
37
(iv) Dr George Wain MB BS, Fellow of the Royal Australian College of
Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. He holds the Certificate of Gynaecological
Oncology of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. He is the
Director of Gynaecological Oncology at Westmead Hospital in Sydney and a
Senior Lecturer in Gynaecological Oncology at the University of Sydney.
4.10 The Health Funding Authority provided for the Committee a report titled the Action
Update Report, (received as exhibit TM/HFA/087). This report updated the results of
the Sydney re-read as compared with the results of Gisborne Laboratories. In the
course of her evidence to the Committee Dr Farnsworth produced a document (exhibit
AF/HFA/004) which set out her analysis of the data in the Action Update Report. She
elaborated on this analysis when questioned by the Committee. The analysis Dr
Farnsworth provided in exhibit HF/HFA/004 produced three discrete indicators of the
two laboratories‟ performance. These three indicators were enough to satisfy Dr
Farnsworth that there had been an unacceptable level of under-reporting of cervical
smear tests at Gisborne Laboratories.
4.11 For the purpose of understanding the first indicator it is important to note that in the
interchange between Dr Farnsworth and the Committee the term “false positive
reporting” was defined as the percentage of smear tests which were not confirmed by
the biopsy or for which there were no biopsy results. However, when Dr Farnsworth
came to give evidence on the second indicator the definition of false positive changed
from that used in the first indicator. Here the term “false positive” referred to the
percentage of women with normal histology who had been reported as having high-
grade/cancer cytology. To arrive at these percentages the denominator used to
calculate the first indicator included all the women with a high-grade/cancer cytology
result recorded in tables 5.3 and 5.4 of exhibit TM/HFA/087 regardless of whether or
not they had histology results recorded as well. The denominator used to calculate the
second indicator only included those women recorded in tables 5.3 and 5.4 who had
histology results and was restricted to women with negative histology. Women who
did not have histology results were not included. Similarly, for the third indicator the
group of women being considered, and the denominator used to calculate the
38
percentages, is different to the other two indicators. It follows that because the
denominators for each group are different each indicator must be viewed discretely.
First Indicator
4.12 The first indicator is taken from the proportion of women with high-grade/cancer
cytology who were later confirmed on biopsy as having high-grade/cancer histology.
It is a measure of the accuracy of high-grade/cancer cytology reporting. This indicator
is derived from data set out in tables 5.3 and 5.4 of exhibit TN/HFA/087. The data in
table 5.3 refers to the original reading by Gisborne Laboratories and in 5.4 to the re-
reading by Douglass Hanly Moir Pathology. Table 5.3 comprises 3 sub-tables (5.3(a)
to (c)) of data which set out the histology results from initial colposcopy in relation to
the highest original smear test result, for all women over three time periods. The three
time periods were 1991 to February 1996, March 1996 to April 1999, and May 1999
to the present. Evidence before the Committee explained that the data was presented
in this format in order to allow for the effect of time on the analysis and interpretation.
The importance of this related to the fact that cervical pre-cancer can over time regress
to normal or a lesser pre-cancerous lesion, persist unchanged, or progress to a more
severe pre-cancerous lesion or cancer. Dr Farnsworth explained that for the purposes
of the inter-laboratory comparison, ie the comparison of Gisborne Laboratories with
Douglass Hanly Moir Pathology, the impact of time would be the same for both
laboratories and would not need to be allowed for. The results in exhibit AF/HFA/004
relate to aggregated data from the three time periods.
4.13 From table 5.3 the proportion of women who had high-grade/cancer cytology reports
from Gisborne Laboratories and who were subsequently confirmed by biopsy as
having high-grade/ cancer histology can be seen. Table 5.4 also comprises three sub-
tables (5.4.(a) to (c)) which set out the histology results from initial colposcopy, in
relation to the highest smear result read by Douglass Hanly Moir Pathology, for all
women over the same three time periods as in table 5.3. From table 5.4 the proportion
of women who had high-grade cytology including cancer reports from Douglass Hanly
Moir Pathology and who were subsequently confirmed by biopsy as having high-
grade/ cancer histology can be seen.
39
4.14 When table 5.3 is compared with table 5.4 two points emerge. The first is that both
laboratories had approximately the same proportion of high-grade/cancer cytology
confirmed as high-grade/cancer by histology. The original smear test results showed
that 37 out of 72 women who were reported as having high-grade/cancer cytology
were confirmed as high-grade/cancer on biopsy. This makes the confirmation rate for
high-grade/cancer cytology reported at Gisborne Laboratories 51.3%. The results of
the Sydney re-read showed that 132 out of 260 women who Douglass Hanly Moir
Pathology reported as having high-grade/cancer cytology were later confirmed as
high-grade/cancer on biopsy. This makes the confirmation rate for high-grade/cancer
cytology reported at Douglass Hanly Moir Pathology 50.7%. These results indicate
that each laboratories‟ confirmation of their smear results of high-grade/cancer at
approximately 50% was much the same. The remainder, were either not confirmed by
the histology or there was no histology result yet available. Dr Farnsworth gave
evidence that some of these unconfirmed high-grade/cancer cytology results could be
due to false positive reporting or the reporting could be correct as their disease status
was unknown until they had undergone a biopsy. The Committee understood from
this evidence that the 50% confirmation rate of each laboratory was a minimum rate
and that the inclusion of additional histology results might increase the confirmation
rate of one or both laboratories, but would not decrease it.
4.15 Because the re-read exercise had been carried out to ascertain if women whose
cervical smear tests had been read at Gisborne Laboratories were at risk there was a
concern that when the smear tests were re-read at Douglass Hanly Moir Pathology the
screeners, who would know that the smear tests were being re-read, would be overly
cautious in their approach. If the screeners at Douglass Hanly Moir Pathology had
been overly cautious this could lead them to over-report smear tests as high-grade/
cancer. In this case the results of the re-reading would not provide a fair basis for
comparison with the original results of the readings at Gisborne Laboratories. For this
reason doubts had been raised about the usefulness to the Committee of the
information coming from the Sydney re-read. However it became clear to the
Committee, when it heard the evidence of Dr Farnsworth of Douglass Hanly Moir
Pathology, that both laboratories had a similar rate of accuracy in reporting high-
grade/cancer. If Douglass Hanly Moir pathology had over-reported the smear tests
relative to Gisborne Laboratories, its confirmation rate of high-grade/cancer cytology
40
would have been less than Gisborne Laboratories. The similarity in their rate of
accuracy was enough to allay any doubts the Committee might otherwise have had
about using the results from the Sydney re-read as a basis for comparison with the
original results from Gisborne Laboratories. Hence, the Committee was confident
about using the information from the Sydney re-read results for the purposes of
determining if there had been under-reporting of cervical smear tests at Gisborne
Laboratories.
4.16 The second point to emerge from a comparison of table 5.3 with table 5.4, is the more
significant. When the original results are compared with the results of the Sydney re-
read a wide discrepancy between the laboratories in the number of reported high-
grade/cancer cytology results becomes readily apparent. At Douglass Hanly Moir
Pathology 132 smear tests had been read and confirmed by biopsy as high-
grade/cancer which is 3.5 times more than the 37 smears read as high-grade/cancer by
Gisborne Laboratories. This wide discrepancy between the number of cervical smear
tests recognised by Douglass Hanly Moir Pathology as showing high-grade/cancer
abnormalities, and the number recognised by Gisborne Laboratories shows that at
Gisborne Laboratories there was a frequent failure to recognise the presence of high-
grade/cancer abnormalities. Dr Farnsworth‟s evidence on this point was:
Question by Professor Duggan: I‟m going to put this statement to you and
perhaps you can comment on it. What these calculations [in exhibit
TM/HFA/87] indicate to me is that the confirmation by the biopsy of a smear
called cancer or high-grade for both laboratories over the three time periods
are essentially the same?
A That‟s right.
Q However, the number of smears confirmed by Sydney [Douglass
Hanly Moir Pathology] as high-grade is 3.5 times more than the number of
smears confirmed as high-grade by Dr Bottrill‟s laboratory?
A That‟s right.
…
Q What does that result mean to you?
A It actually means to me that …both confirmation rates are
essentially the same, but it would confirm to me that the extra or the % of
extra high-grades that we found were in fact true high-grades.
Q At the same rate as Dr Bottrill?
A At the same rate as Dr Bottrill‟s.
…
41
Q Dr Farnsworth, you may recall that yesterday one of the very first
points I inquired of you was in relation to the histology.
A Yes.
Q Was the reading of the histology for the period for both laboratories
the same?
A It would be very much the same.
Q It‟s the same. And any regression of disease would be the same for
both laboratories?
A Exactly.
Q And thereafter is it correct to say that false positive reporting – ie
the 50% that weren't recognised or confirmed by the biopsy, some of that
may be due to false positive reporting or some may be due to disease that is
yet to be detected?
A Yes, that‟s also possible.
Q but this would apply to both Dr Bottrill‟s results and to your results?
A That‟s exactly right.
Q so there is an internal standard, in terms of the histopathology and
the regression of disease for both laboratories because you are comparing the
same variables?
A Exactly.
Q And the only difference between the two re-reads is that your
laboratory detected 3.5 times more biopsy confirmed high-grade disease than
Dr Bottrill‟s laboratory?
A That‟s exactly right.
Q Now could this represent under-reporting?
A Yes.
Q By Dr Bottrill?
A Yes.
Second Indicator
4.17 The second indicator is taken from the proportion of women (in tables 5.3 and 5.4)
with normal histology who had been reported as having high-grade/cancer cytology.
This indicator gives a measure of the false positive reporting of each laboratory.
Dr Farnsworth told the Committee that the usual denominator used to calculate the
rate of false positive reporting is the number of normal histologies on biopsy. The
number of normal histologies on biopsy in tables 5.3 and 5.4 was 76 so this became
the common denominator for calculating the false positive reporting rate of Gisborne
42
Laboratories and Douglass Hanly Moir Pathology. Analysis of the data in tables 5.3
and 5.4 of exhibit TM/HFA/87 shows that over the three time periods out of 76
women Gisborne Laboratories reported three of them as having high-grade cytology
and they were later found on biopsy to have normal histology. Whereas, Douglass
Hanly Moir Pathology reported 22 out of the same group of women as having high-
grade cytology and they were later confirmed by biopsy to have normal histology.
This means that there was a wide discrepancy between the false positive reporting
rates of the two laboratories in relation to the data. The false positive reporting rate of
Gisborne Laboratories was 3.9% whereas the false positive reporting rate of Douglass
Hanly Moir Pathology was 28.9%.
4.18 In cervical smear reading there is always a trade off between the sensitivity and
specificity of a test. In the context of high-grade/cancer detection, sensitivity is the
proportion of all people who have the disease who are correctly identified as such by
the test. Anyone with the disease who is not identified by the test is a false negative.
Specificity is the proportion of all people who do not have the disease who are
correctly identified as such by the test. Anyone who does not have the disease but
whose test is positive is a false positive result. Pathologists would agree that some
degree of false positive reporting due to over-reporting, (sometimes referred to as
over-calling) is acceptable as that increases the probability of high-grade lesions being
detected and reduces the potential for under-reporting a cervical smear test. When
viewed against the 28.9% rate of Douglass Hanly Moir Pathology the Gisborne
Laboratories false positive reporting rate of 3.9% appears to be extremely low and
likely to carry with it a greater risk of under-reporting. Dr Farnsworth‟s evidence on
this point was:
Question by Professor Duggan: Dr Farnsworth, what does this mean?
A It means that Dr Bottrill had a very low false positive rate,
especially compared to the Sydney re-read.
Q Now the Sydney re-read was geared towards ensuring that women
would have the best treatment?
A That‟s right, yes.
Q And with that background, is it likely that you over-called?
A It is perceived as over-calling on the straight numbers. The
appearances that we used to make the …reports of high-grades are
43
appearances that we use in our everyday laboratory, and it may be that we do
it in our normal day to day work. …By increasing your sensitivity, which
means increasing your false positive rate, you do lower …specificity, …And
I have heard it colloquially put [as] where one sets the bar. But in a
screening population where the Pap smear is designed to…sort out women
who need to be further investigated from women who can then return to their
normal screening interval, it is an accepted practice to in fact increase one‟s
sensitivity at the expense of specificity for that purpose. And it is an accepted
screening technique to in fact have a higher false positive rate so that one can
in fact detect as many …high-grade lesions as possible.
Q If I‟ve heard you correctly then, you have said that it is accepted in
cervical screening practices that the specificity will be compromised in order
to attain a better sensitivity –
A that‟s right.
Q - and you are not surprised at the false positive rate [of Douglass
Hanly Moir Pathology]?
A Exactly. And although a false positive rate is something that needs
to be continually assessed and looked at as part of a normal laboratory‟s
processes, it would be of great concern if your false positive rate was
extremely low because it would mean that you are therefore missing a large
number of the high-grade lesions that you're in fact looking for.
CHAIR Could that mean if you had a very low false positive rate that there
was a greater likelihood that you may be under-reporting?
A Absolutely, …If you have, …, a very high … false positive rate,
…it means that…some specificity will be lost. But that is acceptable, and in
fact, arguably, it‟s the way Pap smears should be read.
Q Therefore, if you were looking for indicators of under-reporting
could one possible indicator of under-reporting be a very low false positive
rate?
A Yes…. By the way, it‟s important that any one indicator is not
taken alone.
Q No.
A Absolutely critical.
Q But taken with other indicators a low false positive rate would be a
factor that would suggest under-reporting.
A …They should never be taken in isolation but yes in a group, but
one would …look at the false positive rate and then go straight to the false
negative rate…they should balance, …and in fact one would probably get
more concerned if they didn‟t balance.
Q And the false positive rate that you‟ve just given in this exhibit
working through with Dr Duggan for Dr Bottrill‟s laboratory, do you
consider that to be high, low, acceptable. I know that we don‟t have
standards here.
A The false positive rate that we‟ve just talked about of 3.9%?
Q Yes, what's your opinion of it.
44
A Well it's extremely low.
Q Right so it would be permissible to take a false positive rate of 3.9%
together with other factors as an indicator of under-reporting.
A In isolation arguably it means that the cytology that was seen was in
fact spot on. …However if one is talking about a population screening
exercise and one saw a very low false positive rate in association with a high
false negative rate, one would be very concerned for that screening
population.
Third Indicator
4.19 From the data in tables 5.3 and 5.4 the third indicator is taken from the proportion of
women with high-grade/cancer histology whose cytology had been reported as
abnormal. It is a measure of true positive reporting by the laboratories.
Dr Farnsworth described the third indicator as showing under-reporting in the sense of
failing to recognise an abnormal smear and under-reporting in the sense of failing to
recognise the appropriate category of abnormality:
“… what we‟re looking at here is in fact under-reporting not just in the
yes/no separation but under-reporting within the categorisation of those
[abnormal] appearances.”
4.20 The third indicator has two parts: First, it takes the proportion of women with high-
grade/cancer histology whose cervical smear tests had been reported as high-
grade/cancer. Across all the time periods, table 5.3 showed that out of 216 women
with cancer/high-grade histology, Gisborne Laboratories had reported 37 of them as
having high-grade/cancer cytology. Whereas table 5.4 showed that for the same group
of women Douglass Hanly Moir Pathology had reported 132 of them as having high-
grade/cancer cytology. These calculations show Gisborne Laboratories to have a rate
of 17% for detecting high-grade/cancer abnormalities whereas Douglass Hanly Moir
Pathology has a rate of 61%.
Dr Farnsworth‟s comments on the wide variation between the 17% reporting rate for
Gisborne Laboratories and the 61% reporting rate for Douglass Hanly Moir Pathology
these rates were:
…
CHAIR: Is the rate of 17% for Dr Bottrill‟s laboratory in the third
indicator, I know we don‟t have benchmark standards in New Zealand but
45
nevertheless, in your experience as a pathologist would you describe that as a
very low rate, low, medium, high, whatever.
A It's extremely low.
Q Would you say was unacceptably low?
A Yes I would.
Q And can you say why?
A Back to my comments about cervical cancer remember that we are
actually screening for these lesions, we are screening high-grade lesions
both the Australian Government and the New Zealand Government spend a
large amount of money trying to look after the women of their countries.
These are the lesions we are actually looking for because it's these lesions
that by finding them at this stage you can remove and actually prevent
cancer. It would seem to me that if you are picking up such a small
percentage of the actual disease that exists in that community of screened
women, then basically you shouldn‟t have a screening programme at all
because it's not doing any good.
4.21 The second part of the third indicator looked at the proportion of women shown in
tables 5.3 and 5.4 with high-grade/cancer histology whose cervical smear tests had
been reported as abnormal but to a lesser degree than high-grade or cancer. The data
in the table 5.3 showed that out of 216 women with high-grade/cancer histology
Gisborne Laboratories had read 111 of them as having abnormal cytology. Table 5.4
showed that out of the same group of women Douglass Hanly Moir Laboratories had
read 85 of them as having abnormal cytology. The reporting rate for Gisborne
Laboratories for the three time periods was 51% whereas the rate for Douglass Hanly
Moir Laboratories was 40%. Dr Farnsworth‟s evidence, when asked to comment on
these rates, was that they showed that Douglass Hanly Moir Pathology had more
accurately read the cytology of the 216 women whose results were given in tables 5.3
and 5.4:
Q Now what does this indicator mean in terms of Dr Bottrill‟s
reporting and the Sydney laboratory reporting?
A It is in fact a more specific marker of false negative cytology if one
takes it globally. …if we actually did or organised a screening programme so
that one had either an abnormal category v‟s a normal category this particular
additional data would show that in fact Sydney would have separated all the
correct results into the need investigation group whereas the original
laboratory would have not identified a significant percentage of women…
Q So which laboratory is better?
A The Sydney re-read would in terms of screening programmes be
much more accurate because the whole purpose …is to separate out … the
46
women that did deserve to have further investigation whereas [ in the case of
Gisborne Laboratories‟s reporting]there would have been 32% of women in
this particular population who had high-grade lesions who would have then
been returned to the screening pool and said that they don‟t actually have to
have another smear for 3 years.
CHAIR INTERJECTS
CHAIR: Would you just say why that is? Could you just say how
you come to that conclusion?
A Again, I‟m using the very simple concept of a screening
programme, talking about sensitivity and leaving aside specificity, and if we
take the example that a screening programme should be designed …to detect
abnormalities that are present in the screened population or the potentially
screened population, and if one takes a very simplistic premise that you call
that group perfectly okay, they can return and come back for their next Pap
smear in 3 years as opposed to the group that needs to have something further
done - and arguably that is the whole purpose of the screening programme -
then the Sydney re-read would have …put all the women who had
abnormalities present and high-grade significant abnormalities, which is the
one we‟re trying to detect, …into the “correct” basket, for want of a better
word. Whereas in the original re-read, …, there would have been 68 women
who were arguably falsely reassured that they had nothing wrong with their
cervix and could just return for a further smear.
…
Q Yes. So these 68 women are women who would have [been] read
… as normal, [ were] put back into the screening population, therefore, when
in fact they should have gone on to colposcopy?
A Yes, exactly, which is about one third of the women.
Dr Farnsworth was questioned by the Chair on this aspect of the
third indicator:
Q it seems that the third indicator falls in to two parts, this is the
second part –
A that‟s right.
Q - which we hadn't considered before.
A That‟s right,…but it is further evidence.
...
Q - further evidence of –
A Of significant under-reporting.
4.22 Dr Farnsworth acknowledged that each indicator on its own was not sufficient to
support the conclusion that Gisborne Laboratories had an unacceptable level of under-
reporting. Indeed she was careful in her evidence to point out the dangers of relying
on one indicator in isolation. She also acknowledged that the calculations from tables
5.3 and 5.4 of exhibit TM/HFA/087 only allowed a comparison between the
performance of the two laboratories in relation to their reporting on the results given in
47
those tables. However, the combination of the three indicators signified to her that
there had been an unacceptable level of under-reporting by Gisborne Laboratories:
Q And if we could just go back over to summarise, we‟ve gone
through the three indicators, if we take each of these three indicators and look
at them as a group, do the three of them together go someway to providing an
indication that Dr Bottrill was under-reporting?
A Yes they do.
Q And on a 10 point scale if you can, can you tell me how far does the
combination of these three indicators take you?
A You want an under-reporting, 10 is high and 0 is low?
Q Yes.
…
A They indicate a very high level of under-reporting, a very high level
and if one wanted to grade it from 10 being the highest level of under-
reporting you could have v‟s 0 to no under-reporting I‟d give him an 8.
Q Right. Would you say that was unacceptable under-reporting?
A Absolutely.
Q Now the other point I‟d like to know is, you‟ve come to this opinion
on the basis of these three indicators. Are they sufficient to come to a view
on under-reporting or do you need to take other factors into account. In other
words, can you reliably say on the basis of these three indicators, there has
been under-reporting to a level of an 8 which you would say is unacceptable?
A These three indicators would allow me to say that but there are other
factors that I am aware of which would also influence, if you wanted to ask
me again, from other points of view but alone these three indicators would
indicate…an 8 level of under-reporting.
Other Evidence Showing Unacceptable Under-reporting
4.23 Other witnesses also gave evidence which supported the conclusion that the level of
under-reporting was unacceptable. Professor David Skegg suggested that the
Committee should consider the number of women who had developed invasive
cervical cancer despite being screened regularly. Since the purpose of a cervical
screening programme is to identify those women with pre-cancerous abnormalities and
to offer them early treatment before the abnormalities develop into cervical cancer a
successful screening programme should prevent pre-cancerous abnormalities from
developing into invasive cervical cancer. If, therefore, in a population of women who
are screened regularly there are a substantial number of cases of cervical cancer which
48
could have been prevented if detected at the pre-cancerous stage, that indicates an
unacceptable level of under-reporting.
4.24 Professor Skegg said that the three indicators which Dr Farnsworth presented had
demonstrated to him that there had been “a substantial under-reporting.” For him a
“striking” factor, which he derived from the data in table 5.6 of exhibit TM/HFA/87,
was that in the case of 16 women who developed cervical cancer Gisborne
Laboratories had read their cervical smear tests as normal whereas Douglass Hanly
Moir Pathology had read the same cervical smear tests as cervical cancer or high-
grade/cancer abnormality. Professor Skegg considered that, even when the high
reporting rate of Douglass Hanly Moir Pathology, which was high in comparison with
New Zealand laboratories overall, and other limitations on the use of the data in
TM/HFA/87 was taken into account, this difference in reporting high-grade
abnormalities or cervical cancer was significant and showed Gisborne Laboratories to
have been reporting at an unacceptable level:
A Just returning to this table [5.6 exhibit TM/HFA/87] for a moment,
even though I believe one must temper one‟s conclusions with the awareness
that the Sydney laboratory was reporting at a much higher level than any NZ
laboratory, I still think these two observations, the first is that there were 17
women who developed cervical cancer after having 1 or more normal smears
is striking, and even though we may have to set aside 6 of those 17 as
possibly being diagnostic, and also the dichotomy from the Sydney results,
the fact that in the second two periods which I think– one can put the most
reliance on, that 16 had all been reported as either normal or low-grade or
ASCUS by Dr Bottrill and all [were] reported as high-grade or cancer by
Sydney, I believe that that does indicate a substantial level of under-
reporting.
…
Q You‟ve said there is a substantial level of under-reporting. Would
you be prepared to grade it on a scale from 1 to 10, 10 being the worst case
of under-reporting and 1 being the least serious case of under-reporting.
Where would you say this level of under-reporting fell?
A I‟m sorry to be unhelpful but I think that will be very subjective and
I would be unwilling to do it. All I can say is that it seems to me very
substantial.
Q When you say it‟s very substantial would you say that it was
unacceptable?
A Yes, I would.
4.25 Dr Cox used the data in table 5.6 of exhibit TM/HFA/87 to calculate the sensitivity of
the reporting of the two laboratories. He concluded that Gisborne Laboratories had a
49
sensitivity of 43.5% whereas Douglass Hanly Moir Pathology had a sensitivity of
95%. He described the sensitivity of Gisborne Laboratories as being unacceptably
low:
A I‟d like to start, if I may, on 5.6 because I believe that this table is
very crucial to the term of reference 1 as has been identified yesterday. I
would like to use this table to estimate the laboratory sensitivity for the
detection of high-grade or cancer of both Dr Bottrill‟s laboratory and the
Sydney laboratory. And to do that I would like to invoke an assumption that
of those who‟ve developed cancer right through to beyond May 1999 that
they had either cancer or high-grade throughout the entire period.
CHAIR: What period‟s that?
A From 91 right through. Now I realise that it is possible, although I
think a relatively small probability, that high-grade or worse has not been
present throughout, and for many of these it may have been high-grade and
then subsequently developed cancer. And if I invoke that, the original
laboratory or Dr Bottrill‟s laboratory, which is 5.6b, we end up …with an
original laboratory sensitivity of 35.9% in my calculations …which is 14
over 39, and if you [do] a similar thing for the re-read at the Sydney
laboratory and I‟m not including ASCUS H in at this time …you end up with
37 out of 39 being positive which would give a sensitivity for that laboratory
of 95%. Now I realise that I would also like to invoke a benchmark of say
85% laboratory sensitivity. Now I know normally in terms of Dr
McGoogan‟s evidence that has been calculated in a very different manner to
do with rereading of slides within the laboratory but if I invoke that then Dr
Bottrill‟s sensitivity as I measure [it] is statistically significantly lower than
that benchmark. Moreover the benchmark would have to be 51% for the
difference between the benchmark and Dr Bottrill‟s laboratory to not be
statistically significant and I believe that even under the assumptions I need
to invoke if you like to calculate these sensitivities, a figure of 51% would
not be agreed on by anybody.
PROFESSOR DUGGAN: Could I just ask you to clarify one thing.
For Dr Bottrill‟s laboratory you are accepting as a predictor of the cancer his
6 diagnoses of cancer in the first row, the 6 of high-grade in the second row
and the 5 low-grade.
A Sorry I have missed that. I take that back.
…
A I can recalculate things but I still don‟t think and I‟m pretty sure –
CHAIR INTERJECTS
CHAIR: Could you please recalculate so we‟ve got something.
A 43.5%. And I therefore need to do something a little different. In
which case the benchmark cut off that I mentioned before would not be 51%
it would be 59% and I still believe that would not be a level which would be
acceptable.
PROFESSOR DUGGAN: Just for the committee how did you
calculate that benchmark of 59%.
A I believe the variants for a binomial proportion which is what the
laboratory sensitivity is what‟s called PQ/N. P which is this probability here
of .435 x 1 minus that figure divided by the number overall which is 39 and
50
the square root of that figure is the standard deviation. By taking that
standard deviation and multiplying it by 1.96 which is a standard figure in the
normal distribution table for 95% confidence interval or limit you get a figure
of something like .15. You then have to add that to your original .435
because when you just multiply the standard deviation by 1.96 you get the
difference between a benchmark and this particular figure then you have to
add that difference to the figure so from that I calculate that the benchmark
would need to be 59% for there not to be a statistical significant difference
between Dr Bottrill‟s sensitivity invoking the assumptions I did and the
benchmark. Obviously the re-read laboratory has a figure and I hope I got
this right of 95% sensitivity and is obviously – would be very acceptable.
Q So the Sydney reporting is acceptable?
A On the basis of table 5.6 and the assumptions that I invoked except
in terms of it‟s estimated sensitivity. There are other issues with the Sydney
laboratory but not related to the sensitivity.
Q What about Dr Bottrill‟s result.
A Dr Bottrill‟s result I believe is unacceptably low.
CHAIR INTERJECTS
CHAIR: You said you‟ve used as a reliable benchmark a figure of
85% where did you get that from?
A …I just said I would invoke it partly because in Dr McGoogan‟s
evidence in calculating the laboratory sensitivity a very different way which
was by relooking at slides, their range of laboratory sensitivities .85 - .09,
85% or 95% for their standard as you like.
Q So your using it as a rule of thumb here.
A I was trying to use that as a rule of thumb as a starting point. I
realise the benchmark and the way this is calculated is quite different and so I
actually prefer to calculate what the benchmark would need to be.
Q And on that basis then you have a benchmark of 59% and in your
view that would be too low by anyone‟s standards.
A Yes.
PROFESSOR DUGGAN: Dr Cox even if you were to evaluate this
data without using the 85% benchmark put forward by Dr McGoogan, a
sensitivity of 95% for Sydney versus a sensitivity of 43.5% for Dr Bottrill,
could you comment on those just approaching it as an inter-laboratory
comparison where variables for each laboratory are essentially controlled
except for the reporting of the smear?
A Well obviously that difference is even greater than the benchmark I
invoked and is highly statistically significant. The issue here is that
laboratories set their own trade-off between sensitivity and specificity, which
is a technical term. I think they‟ve been defined to the Inquiry earlier. And
each laboratory is probably different in the balance between sensitivity and
specificity they choose. Unfortunately in some laboratories it occurs by
default rather than by intent. I think here we have a situation where we have
if you like, two opposite extremes where the Sydney laboratory has a high
sensitivity in terms of laboratory reporting and Dr Bottrill‟s laboratory has a
relatively low sensitivity. ….
…
51
A And the Sydney laboratory has a high specificity but it‟s lower
than Dr Bottrill‟s. So we have this contrast and the trade-off is that if the
Sydney laboratory had been, if you like, reading the smears through to the
time period of 1991 to 1996 then we would most likely detect something like
twice as many cancers and we would have had about 3., or maybe 3 times the
amount of referral for colposcopy or having a repeat smear. I must say that
in these calculations I have to acknowledge that there is a combination of
both screening smears and diagnostic smears within the series, but I would
expect that the presence of diagnostic smears to actually increase the
sensitivity because most times I would expect an indication or signs or
symptoms on the request form which would heighten the readers index of
suspicion when reading the smears in the first place.
Q the assumption you have made that the women concerned were
likely to have cancer or high-grade abnormality between 91 and 99, how
comfortable are you with making that assumption – in other words, is there a
high probability that that was so, a low probability, in the middle – what?
A I believe there‟s a high probability that great majority of those
people who developed the cancer during the period will have had high-grade
or as I‟ve said earlier, low-grade or cancer present on their cervix all the way
through.
Q So if you were doing this as an epidemiological study you would
feel scientifically comfortable about making that assumption?
A I would feel some nervousness about making the assumption, and in
a way I am disappointed in the sense that from the way the tables are created,
you expect that the individual record data would allow this to be calculated in
a different way that might be much more informative and reduce that
possibility. So I have some nervousness about the assumption but I think, in
terms of comparative purposes, it applies to both.
Yes, thank you.
4.26 A subsequent audit of the data in exhibit TM/HFA/087 by the Health Funding
Authority revealed that it had wrongly recorded data in some of the tables. An audit
of table 5.6, which Professor Skegg and Dr Cox had each relied upon to reach their
separate conclusions that Gisborne Laboratories had under-reported at an unacceptable
level, could not confirm the diagnosis of one of the 39 women recorded as having
cancer. Dr Cox was asked to provide additional expert evidence to the Committee on
the epidemiological impact of the one unconfirmed diagnosis in table 5.6 on the
conclusions which he had reached. His evidence, which was given to the Committee
in the form of an unsworn written statement, was that:
“ …reducing the number of women with invasive cervical cancer by one, to
38 would not appear to be sufficient to alter the conclusion that there was a
significant level of under-reporting of cervical cytology in Gisborne.”
52
4.27 Dr Wain, was another expert witness who considered that the statistical data contained
in exhibit “TM/HFA/87” showed there had been an unacceptable level of inder-
reporting. Of all the women diagnosed with invasive cervical cancer Gisborne
Laboratories Limited had reported only 30% of this group as having either a high-
grade/cancer abnormality or had abnormal cells suspicious but not conclusive of HSIL
(ASCUS-H) whereas Douglass Hanly Moir Pathology had reported every one in the
group as having either a high-grade abnormality or cancer:
Q Would you agree with this summary, that all of the women who
developed cancer were re-read by Sydney as cancer high-grade or ASCUS-
H?
A Yes.
Q Whereas only 12, which is 30% of the women who developed
cancer had their smears read by Dr Bottrill as cancer or high-grade?
A I would agree with that.
Q What do those rates mean to you?
A I think that number 1 it confirms to me that the Sydney re-read is
likely to be correct in those women since they‟ve all been subsequently
shown to have cancer and number 2 that Dr Bottrill wasn‟t very good at
picking up women with definite abnormalities on their cervix.
Q Could this be under-reporting by Dr Bottrill?
A I think it is almost certainly under-reporting.
Q Could it be anything else?
A When you compare the two I can‟t think of anything else that it
could be.
CHAIR INTERJECTS
CHAIR: From that table alone are you able to give an indication of
the level of under-reporting?
A It's extreme.
CHAIR: On a 10 point scale, with 1 being the lowest, 10 being the
highest, where would you put the level of under-reporting on the basis of that
table which is table 5.6 in the exhibit 87 of Mellor‟s supplementary?
A I feel like an olympic judge! I‟ve heard you ask that question
yesterday and thought it was a very difficult question I think this is as bad as
it gets.
Q So where would you put it.
A: 10.
53
Q You‟d give it a 10. And would you say that was unacceptable
under-reporting?
A Completely unacceptable.
PROFESSOR DUGGAN: Dr Wain I have one further question
about this table. You have already mentioned that in your practice the
women who present with invasive cancer have not been screened and it's
rare for you to manage a woman with invasive cancer who has had a Pap
smear. Looking at these two tables here what can you say about these
women who have developed invasive cancer in the Tairawhiti region?
A It certainly doesn‟t match with my clinical experience and they have
been very unlucky to have developed cervical cancer despite the fact that
they‟ve gone through the process of having Pap smears. They‟re a screened
population but they‟ve got no benefit from screening.
Q Thank you.
4.28 Dr Ron Jones was a part of the HFA advisory group for the Sydney re- read and was
involved in providing follow up colposcopy services. The data from colposcopy is
complicated (as he explained) because colposcopy is, like cytology, not an exact
science. Accepting that limitation on the data, however, Dr. Jones‟ evidence was that
the colposcopy follow up data also tended to support the accuracy of the Sydney re-
read because a number of women with non symptomatic invasive cervical cancer were
detected as a result of the re-read. There were more cancers than he expected to see
4.29 Because some false negative results are expected a cervical screening programme
depends on women having cervical smear tests at regular intervals so that an
abnormality which a laboratory misses on one occasion will be less likely to be missed
on a subsequent occasion. Although Dr. Wain only considered the records of a small
group of women he was struck by the number of what appeared to him to be repeat
misreads. After considering the cases of more than one misread, and some cases of
women with 5 and even one with 6 apparently misread slides he said:
“I am not a gambler but if you work out the probability of that happening, it
must be extraordinarily rare…almost unbelievable.”
4.30 The impression Dr Wain had from looking at the patient files was consistent with his
expectation of the natural progression of the disease in the absence of a screening
programme. Since the population seemed to him to have been well screened (meaning
that there were a high number of enrolments) it was his view that:
54
“somewhere along the way things were going wrong very badly”
4.31 There were other factors which, on their own are not be reliable indicators of under-
reporting, however when considered together with the above evidence they support the
conclusion that there was an unacceptable level of under-reporting at Gisborne
Laboratories: First, there is a marked difference between the reporting rates for high-
grade abnormalities when Dr Bottrill was in practice and when he retired, and the
business of Gisborne Laboratories was sold to Med Lab Hamilton. The Committee is
aware that there are issues surrounding the question of whether reporting rates of
abnormal test results are in themselves a reliable indicator of laboratory performance,
nevertheless, it considers that the difference in the level of reporting of abnormalities
before and after Dr Bottrill‟s retirement is so great that the Committee can take note
of it.
4.32 Secondly statistics which were prepared jointly by the Ministry of Health and the
Health Funding Authority and produced in evidence to the Committee, show that a
regional analysis of cervical cancer incidence between 1990 and 1997 puts the
Gisborne region at the second highest rate of cervical cancer in New Zealand. The
analysis of these statistics included the calculation of the ratio of observed numbers of
cases to expected numbers of cases expressed as a percentage. This percentage was
called the standardised registration ratio. The national average was expressed as 100%
and standardised registration ratios higher than 100% were above the national average
and conversely percentages lower than 100% were below the national average. The
Gisborne region had a standardised registration ratio of 181.3% or almost twice the
national average. Therefore, one would expect to see a higher rate of abnormalities
being reported from this region. However, the reporting rate of abnormalities in the
period from 1990 to March 1996 was low. In contrast the reporting rates for
abnormalities after March 1996 when Medlab Hamilton took over the business of
Gisborne Laboratories seem to fit better with the region‟s significantly high rate of
cervical cancer.
4.33 The Committee is drawn to the conclusion that it is difficult to think of any convincing
explanation for the sharp increase in the number of abnormalities being reported other
than that after the sale of Gisborne Laboratories Dr Bottrill had stopped reading the
55
cervical cytology of women in the region. Further support for this conclusion can be
obtained from the anecdotal observations made by the local programme co-ordinator
Ms Reid in June 1997 in her report which appears in exhibit “JMG/MOH 62” that
there seemed to me more high-grade abnormalities being diagnosed than previously.
4.34 Thirdly, there is the evidence of Ms Tracy Mellor of the Health Funding Authority on
the rate of abnormality reporting since 1991 which is the time from when women were
recording their first smear on the National Cervical Screening Register. This
information is to be found in exhibit “TM/HFA/85”. It shows that the reporting rates
of Gisborne Laboratories for abnormalities remained about the same despite the fact
that by 1994 and 1995 over half of the women enrolled on the National Cervical
Screening Programme were having their second or a subsequent smear. If screening
were providing a benefit one would expect to see a drop in the abnormality rates. The
fact that rates did not drop over time can also be seen as an indication of under-
reporting.
4.35 Fourthly there is the evidence of Mr. Jim du Rose on 116 smear tests reported as high-
grade or cancer by Douglass Hanly Moir Pathology in TM/HFA/87 at p51, but which
were originally reported as normal by Gisborne Laboratories. More than half (53.4%)
of these false negative smear tests from Gisborne Laboratories were subsequently
confirmed as high-grade or cancer by histology.
4.36 Finally the evidence the Committee heard from Dr Ron Jones, Dr Teague and Dr Tie
is consistent with under-reporting. Moreover it is significant that the Committee has
not heard any evidence to suggest that the rate of reporting abnormalities at Gisborne
Laboratories was acceptable. Indeed Dr Bottrill himself accepted that his level of
under-reporting was unacceptable.
Q: Do you now accept, from what you have seen, read of the evidence
that has been given that during the period 1991 to March 1996, there
has been an unacceptable level of under-reporting of cervical smears
in the Gisborne Region as a consequence of your misreading and/or
misreporting of those smears?
A: Regretfully yes (B3079/24).
56
Conclusion
4.37 In view of the evidence the Committee has heard on term of reference one it has no
difficulty in concluding that there has been an unacceptable level of under-reporting in
the Gisborne region in the period to which this term of reference relates. The
Committee has been able to reach this conclusion even though during the relevant
period there were no performance standards in place against which the performance of
Gisborne Laboratories could be measured. Although at an early stage in the inquiry
hearings there was evidence to suggest that the Committee might not be able to answer
this term of reference without the assistance of an audit of the cases of cervical cancer,
in the end on the evidence available the conclusion which the Committee has reached
was inevitable.
57
5. TERM OF REFERENCE TWO
What are the factors that are likely to have led to the under-reporting?
5.1 Dr Bottrill was at a loss to explain why so many of the cervical smear tests read at
Gisborne Laboratories had been under-reported. The only explanation he could offer
was that his work performance had deteriorated after he had undergone heart surgery
in July 1990.
5.2 Counsel for the women affected submitted that in answering Term of Reference Two
the Committee should identify both direct and indirect factors that are likely to have
led to under-reporting. However, Counsel for the Ministry of Health submitted that
even if there were defects in the Programme‟s delivery, those defects could not have
led to the under-reporting. The Committee considers that the phrase “ to identify the
factors that are likely to have led to that under-reporting” has a meaning which goes
beyond identifying the immediate cause of the under-reporting. Clearly the immediate
cause of any under-reporting is someone misreading a smear test. By directing the
Committee to identify the factors that are likely to have led to unacceptable under-
reporting the Minister of Health is seeking an answer which may go some way to
explain how the under-reporting came about. This will inform the Minister of the
steps that need to be taken to ensure that unacceptable under-reporting is avoided in
the future. Unless the Minister is made aware of all the factors without which damage
could not have occurred the Minister will not be best placed to determine the remedial
action required. For this reason the Committee considers that Term of Reference two
requires it to look for all factors which directly or indirectly materially contributed to
the under-reporting.
5.3 In the Committee‟s view there are a number of factors that are likely to have led to the
unacceptable level of under-reporting at Gisborne Laboratories. These factors fall into
two groups: those that relate directly to the practices followed in Gisborne
Laboratories when reading cervical cytology; and those that relate to the delivery of
cytological services in New Zealand between the years 1990 to 1996. The second
58
group of factors directly influenced how cervical cytology was carried out in Gisborne
Laboratories during this time. Each group of factors is discussed in turn below.
Factors Relating To Practices Followed In Gisborne Laboratories
5.4 The factors relating to practices in Gisborne Laboratories that are likely to have led to
under-reporting of cervical smear tests are:
(i) No specialised division of labour for reading cervical smear tests;
(ii) Inadequate internal quality control including no organised correlation of
biopsy results with cytology results;
(iii) Inadequate systems and procedures;
(iv) No external quality control;
(v) No accreditation with an independent quality control authority;
(vi) Dr Bottrill‟s inadequate participation in continuing medical education;
and
(vii) No awareness that the laboratory‟s practices put patients at risk.
Each of these factors, their impact on the laboratory‟s performance and the likelihood
of them leading to under-reporting is discussed below.
No Specialised Division Of Labour For Reading Cervical Smear Tests
5.5 In most laboratories cervical smear tests are screened by more than one person. The
usual practice is for a specially trained cytotechnologist or cytoscreener to carry out
the primary screening. This entails the careful microscopic examination of slides on
which cellular material from the cervical smear is fixed. It can be a monotonous
repetitive task as the examination of each slide follows a set pattern.
59
Cytotechnologists and cytoscreeners are trained to look for unusual-looking cells on
the slide as these indicate cellular abnormalities. Their task is to sort the abnormal
from the normal smears. Once the abnormal smears are identified they are sent to the
laboratory pathologist who also examines them and then categorises the type of
cellular abnormality.
5.6 The importance of a specialised division of labour when reading cervical cytology has
been well recognised for some time. The World Health Organisation issued a Bulletin
in 1986 titled Control of Cancer of the Cervuix Uteri which stated:
“All smears should be processed and screened at a cytology laboratory in
which the following procedures must be performed: staining, examination by
a cytotechnologist, confirmation by a cytopathologist, communication of
results to a clinician and follow-up of all cases of abnormal cytology.
(emphasis added)
In the same passage the need for pathologists and other laboratory staff to maintain
their competency in cervical cytology by reading a large volume of cervical smear
tests and by avoiding working in isolation was also recognised:
“Cytology services should be centralised. A large volume of work
contributes to the successful operation of a cytology laboratory because a
specialized division of labour is possible and a large number of abnormal
smears representing various pathologies will help to maintain the
cytotechnologists‟ skills. …Usually single unsupervised technicians should
not be placed in isolated areas or health centres, since even well trained
screeners will lose their skills if not exposed to a large number of positive
specimens, teaching and supervision.”
5.7 At Gisborne Laboratories there was no specialised division of labour when it came to
reading cervical smear tests. The cervical cytology was read by one person, and this
was usually Dr Bottrill. He was the only pathologist that Gisborne Laboratories
permanently employed. Of the 22,976 smear tests sent to Douglass Hanly Moir
Pathology in Sydney for re-reading, 20,860 had originally been read by Dr Bottrill.
Gisborne Laboratories received approximately 4000-5000 cervical smear tests per
annum.
5.8 Dr Bottrill carried out all the primary screening of the smear tests, even though he had
no specialist training in cytoscreening. On the occasions when Dr Bottrill went on
60
leave and a locum was employed the locum also carried out the entire task. On his
return from leave Dr Bottrill did not check the smear tests which the locum had read.
Occasionally, when the workload became too heavy, Dr Bottrill employed a locum to
assist him. Once again the practice was for Dr Bottrill and the locum to work
separately on an allotted group of slides. Dr Bottrill said that for the first week he
would check the locum‟s work by re-reading the smear tests and the reports; after that
the locum was left to do his allotted work. Dr Bottrill used to rescreen 10% of the
negative smear tests approximately once a week and when a locum was employed it
seems that Dr Bottrill included the smear tests the locum read in the rescreening
exercise. This was the limit of any sharing of the task of reading cervical smear tests.
5.9 The Committee heard no evidence to support primary screening of cervical smear tests
being performed by a pathologist. Professor McGoogan, Dr Gabriel Medley and Dr
Farnsworth are highly qualified and experienced cytopathologists. They each
informed the Committee that they considered their skills were not suited to primary
screening. In her evidence to the Committee Professor McGoogan said:
Dr Duggan Question Could I ask you for your own personal opinion on
whether pathologists who have not been trained in the skills of primary
screening should function as a primary screener?
A I have a very high regard for the skills of primary screeners, it is an
exceptionally difficult skill to develop and maintain day in day out. It is not
a skill which I have as an individual. I would have to undertake a similar
training and concentrate my training in that area to achieve the same skills.
Q You, as an acknowledged expert in cytopathology, do not consider
you should function as a primary screener .....
A Yes, I agree.
5.10 Other pathologists from whom the Committee heard evidence also did not think it
advisable for a pathologist to perform primary screening. Dr Beer, a pathologist from
Tauranga who gave evidence for the Association of Community Laboratories said he
thought it dangerous for a pathologist to perform primary screening. Dr Teague, who
gave evidence for the Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia said he did not
consider himself competent to primary screen cervical smear tests and that he would
not function as a primary screener. Dr Teague had organised a review of a small group
of Dr Bottrill‟s slides for an accident compensation claim against Dr Bottrill for
61
medical misadventure due to the under-reporting of a patient‟s cervical smear test.
When Dr Teague learnt how Dr Bottrill practised cervical cytology he advised Dr
Bottrill to stop reading smear tests and to send the laboratory‟s cervical cytology
elsewhere; Dr Bottrill did not follow Dr Teague‟s advice.
5.11 Dr Bottrill said that he had not wanted to act as his own primary screener and that he
had done so because: between the years 1990 and 1995 there was a shortage of
cytotechnologists; Gisborne Laboratories did not have enough work to employ a full
time screener; and given the shortage of cytotechnologists it was too difficult to find
someone prepared to do this work part time in a rural area like Gisborne. An
additional reason Dr Bottrill gave for carrying out the primary screening was that he
wished to offer a full service to the Gisborne region and the alternative to him carrying
out the primary screening was for Gisborne Laboratories to send cervical cytology
elsewhere.
5.12 None of the reasons Dr Bottrill gave for the laboratory following this practice justifies
it. There was no question of Dr Bottrill acting out of necessity. The cervical cytology
of women from the Gisborne region could have been read at a laboratory in another
region. All the cervical cytology from the Gisborne region is now read by laboratories
in other regions. Since Medlab Hamilton purchased Gisborne Laboratories the
cervical cytology that was read by Gisborne Laboratories is read in Hamilton. The
Gisborne hospital laboratory has ceased reading cytology and sends any cytology it
receives elsewhere. When Dr Bottrill was in practice, but on sick leave the cervical
cytology Gisborne Laboratories received was read in a laboratory in Palmerston North.
Between 1990 to 1996 there was no obstacle which prevented Gisborne Laboratories
from sending cervical cytology elsewhere, if it had chosen to do so.
5.13 The practice of working alone that Dr Bottrill followed meant there was no
opportunity for a second pair of eyes to view the cervical smear tests that he screened.
Consequently, unless he arranged to seek a second opinion on a smear test, there was
no likelihood of any error he made in reading a smear test being picked up. The
Committee heard evidence from more than one pathologist on the risk of this practice
to patients. The best evidence was given by Professor McGoogan:
62
CHAIR: Question I will start the scenario again, a small laboratory
where you have one pathologist, no-one else employed full or part time,
approximately 5000 smears per annum coming into the laboratory, the single
pathologist doing all screening primary and then I don't know the format he
used to screen abnormals, but have you got enough in front of you now to
formulate an opinion? .....
A Yes. this is in my experience a very unusual situation. It is difficult
in a situation where there is only one person for that individual to quality
control themselves and while it is not impossible to maintain quality service
under those circumstances it would be extremely difficult and would require
exceptional measures to be put in place by the individual to ensure
competence and a quality service.
Q Can you describe how it might be done, in other words, what those
quality control measures might be?
A I can think of ways but what you are really asking me is if I want to
set up a bad service how would I do it with the least risk to women.
Q You have said it could be done, so please outline the measures? .....
A There would have to be frequent and good interaction with
pathologists in another laboratory whereby there was exchange of work
between the two laboratories or at least in one direction from the single
handed pathologist laboratory to the other laboratory for quality control,
internal quality control, there would have to be well documented processes
and data collected for that quality control. Biopsy smear correlation would
be imperative in that situation so that the pathologist knew that patients that
he recommended be referred for colposcopy had been appropriately referred,
in other words, that the majority of these patients did indeed have disease and
that the biopsy reflected the disease he suspected from his cervical smear
report, and that he frequently participated in external quality assurance, he
frequently attended meetings of cytologists with cytology topics pertaining to
cervical screening, and that he ensured that his laboratory met all external
accreditation procedures and processes that were available, and even then I
think there are major risks involved.
5.14 The risk of error when one person reads all the cervical cytology was heightened by
Dr Bottrill‟s practice of cervical cytology as he did not regularly adopt any of the
measures which Professor McGoogan outlined as essential to overcome the risks of a
pathologist acting on his own:
(i) He had no internal quality control of the type contemplated by
Professor McGoogan;
(ii) He did not participate in any external quality control programme;
(iii) Gisborne Laboratories was not accredited with any independent
accreditation authority;
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(iv) It had no organised programme to correlate a patient‟s abnormal
cytology results with the later discovery of cancerous or pre-cancerous
lesions by biopsy;
(v) Dr Bottrill‟s contact with other pathologists and his attempts at
continuing education were insufficient to enable him to overcome the
risks inherent in acting as a sole practitioner in cervical cytology;
(vi) When Dr Bottrill was asked about the measures which Professor
McGoogan had outlined as necessary, if a pathologist were to practise
cervical cytology on his own, he was unable to inform the Committee if
his practices met these measures.
5.15 Dr Teague‟s view of Dr Bottrill‟s practice was similar to that of Professor McGoogan.
He described the practice as suboptimal:
“Q Would you describe it as an acceptable practice?
A I think it would be sub-optimal the way it was done.
Q And why is that?
A Particularly for the reason that there was only one person doing
essentially both the primary and secondary screening or rechecking. There
was some evidence I believe that Dr Bottrill did rescreen 10% of slides and
there are statistics which show in fact that if the same person rescreens a slide
they may get a different answer so to that extent there will be some benefit
from that, but I believe that it would not be the benefit that one would expect
to from getting a different pair of eyes to look at it.”
5.16 The Committee accepts the views that these witnesses have expressed about Dr
Bottrill‟s practice. It agrees with the view expressed by Professor McGoogan that a
laboratory that employs one person to carry out this task is providing a bad service. It
considers that the somewhat subjective nature of the task of reading cervical cytology
makes it too risky for one person to carry out, as misread smears are less likely to be
discovered. The Committee considers that the practice followed at Gisborne
Laboratories of having one person read the cervical cytology is a factor that is likely to
have led to the unacceptable level of under-reporting that occurred at the laboratory.
64
Inadequate Internal Quality Control
5.17 In his evidence Dr Bottrill expressed the view that quality control was something
which played a greater role in large laboratories and he saw no need for it in a small
laboratory like Gisborne Laboratories. The internal quality control that he employed
consisted of him, approximately once a week, re-reading 10% of the smear tests that
he had originally read as normal. He neither documented this exercise, nor did he
compare the re-read results with the original results. He could not recall any occasion
on which, when carrying out a random re-reading of slides, he had discovered a smear
test which he had originally read as normal and which on rereading he found to be
abnormal. Nor could he remember a time when, on re-reading a slide, he became
concerned about his original report. Considering the number of under-reported smear
tests that have now come to light it seems surprising that the 10% random re-screening
he carried out did not reveal any of these errors. The Committee can only conclude
that Dr Bottrill had “calibrated” his eyes to read smear tests with a very high
specificity and that on any second view of a smear test he was only corroborating his
original error.
5.18 Apart from the 10% random re-screening there was little else done in the way of
internal quality control. In 1993 when Gisborne Laboratories had applied for
TELARC accreditation, work began on a quality control manual; however, this work
cannot have been taken very far, or if it was it cannot have been effective as Medlab
Hamilton found it necessary to replace it with its own quality control manual when it
assumed control of Gisborne Laboratories.
5.19 Gisborne Laboratories had no organised programme for correlating biopsy results with
cytology results. Dr Bottrill‟s evidence was that he did keep records of cytology/
histology correlation on the occasions when the histology was sent to him for
diagnosis. However, he accepted that where the biopsy was performed at the local
hospital he was unlikely to receive information about the histology result. There was
no formal communication between Gisborne Laboratories and the local hospital which
would have provided him with this information. If Dr Bottrill had been able to
conduct an organised programme correlating histology with cytology this would have
65
informed him of the accuracy of his reading. It may have brought to his attention his
false positive rate and true positive rate which the Committee knows to have been too
low. Had Dr Bottrill realised his false positive rate was extremely low that may have
made him alive to the probability that he was “setting the bar too high” and
consequently under-reporting too many smear tests. Had he realised his true positive
rate was too low he would have known that he was failing to recognise abnormal
smear tests and reporting them incorrectly as normal (false negatives). A programme
of looking back at a woman‟s previous negative smear tests when she was found to
have a high-grade abnormality on histology to determine if those smear tests were
false negatives should have alerted Dr Bottrill to his under-reporting. In the
circumstances the Committee‟s view is that at Gisborne Laboratories correlation of
histology with cytology occurred sporadically and was not sufficient to produce the
quality control benefits which come from an organised programme of histology
cytology correlation.
5.20 In the Committee‟s view the internal quality control followed at Gisborne Laboratories
was inadequate. It did not meet the expectations of internal quality control that
Professor McGoogan outlined in her evidence. Her expectations of internal quality
control are consistent with those of International Accreditation New Zealand (IANZ),
the national accreditation authority for quality assurance, laboratory testing and
industrial design. The Committee heard evidence from Mr Graham Walker the former
programme manager medical testing and radiology of IANZ on the parameters of
internal quality control. In Mr Walker‟s view Dr Bottrill‟s internal quality control fell
outside these parameters.
5.21 Mr Walker visited Gisborne Laboratories in 1993 when it had applied to the Testing
Laboratory Registration Council (TELARC), which formerly carried out IANZ‟s
functions, for accreditation. The application did not proceed. During his visit Mr
Walker noted the absence of documented laboratory procedures and recorded that this
was something which Gisborne Laboratories would have to institute if it were to
become accredited. An additional aspect of internal quality control that IANZ
considered significant, and which was lacking at Gisborne Laboratories was the ability
to have a smear test checked by a second person. In his brief of evidence to the
Committee Mr Walker said:
66
“An important aspect of internal quality control is the ability to release
apparently normal slides on the basis that a second person within the
laboratory has re-screened a proportion of those slides and validated the test
results. Gisborne Laboratories did not have such a second person. There
was, therefore, no internal quality check, as well as there not being any
opportunity for Dr Bottrill in the cytology/histology context to exchange
ideas with another cytopathologist. In such a circumstance there is extreme
pressure on the pathologist to get the test result right as there are no other
means to intercept problems and carry out frequent and random checks on
test results”.
5.22 The Committee considers that the lack of adequate internal quality control at Gisborne
Laboratories is a factor that is likely to have led to the unacceptable level of under-
reporting that occurred at the laboratory. Had the practices at Gisborne Laboratories
conformed with the internal quality control requirements outlined above it is likely
that the level of under-reporting which occurred would have been detected sooner or
perhaps avoided altogether.
Inadequate Systems And Procedures
5.23 Dr Bottrill‟s views on quality control being more suited to big laboratories may have
coloured his opinion on the usefulness to a small laboratory of organised systems and
procedures in general. The laboratory systems he followed had shortcomings: he had
no procedure in place to prevent a slide mix up, although there is no evidence this had
ever happened; he did not as a matter of routine carry out “look back” exercises of a
woman patient‟s previous smear tests; he had no system to inform him as to whether
or not he had read a woman patient‟s previous smear tests, (this meant that unless he
was told by the woman‟s smear taker that he had read her previous smear tests he had
no way of knowing whether or not there were previous smear tests to look back on);
he did not regularly get information about his female patients from the National
Cervical Screening Register.
5.24 The deficiencies in the systems and procedures at Gisborne Laboratories would not
have promoted a competent performance in cervical cytology. The Committee
considers that this is a factor which, if not of itself, then certainly combined with the
other factors listed herein is likely to have led to the unacceptable level of under-
reporting that occurred at the laboratory.
67
No External Quality Control
5.25 Gisborne Laboratories did not participate in any external quality assurance
programme. Dr Bottrill did not appear to place a high value on quality control. In his
evidence to the Committee he said:
Q Was it your view at the time that measures such as external quality
assurance and quality control systems played no part in affecting your
standard of smear reading?
A Yes
Q So you didn‟t think they would help your accuracy, is that right?
A I think that is correct, yes
Dr Bottrill said that he liased with a series of pathologists who were employed at
Gisborne Hospital. He said he visited the hospital four or five times a week around
lunchtime to have a general discussion with the current hospital pathologist and to
show him or her any slides of interest or difficulty. He said that he maintained good
collegial relationships by doing this and he was also able to obtain second opinions on
difficult or interesting slides. However, he accepted that there was not always a
pathologist employed at the hospital, that there could be periods of up to one year
when nobody was there and that at those times he was the only pathologist in
Gisborne. The Committee considers that the informal interaction Dr Bottrill had with
the pathologists at Gisborne Hospital was insufficient to remove or reduce the risk
inherent in practising as he did. It comes nowhere near the type of interactions that are
carried out for the purpose of external quality control.
5.26 Although the evidence shows that in 1991 there was no entirely satisfactory external
quality assurance programme available, and it seems that was still so in 1993, the
Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia offered a programme which was a step in
the right direction and over the years this programme has developed and improved.
The Committee‟s view is that participation in an external quality assurance
programme which is still in the early stages of development and which may not be
entirely satisfactory has benefit nevertheless, as it should make a pathologist more
alert to the possibility of error, and it should cause a pathologist to focus more on the
68
need to adopt measures to reduce the risk of error occurring. The external quality
assurance programme which the Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia offered
involved a pathologist receiving slides from the College, reading them and reporting
the results to a central collating agency and subsequently receiving reports which
compared the reports of his or her slide reading with the consensus view of the other
pathologists who participated in the programme. In this way a pathologist was able to
learn whether or not his or her reading of slides was within the average range or above
or below that range.
5.27 Participation in such a scheme may have alerted Dr Bottrill to the likelihood that he
was failing to recognise some abnormal smears and consequently he was under-
reporting the abnormalities he was seeing. The Committee considers that the failure at
Gisborne Laboratories to ensure that the pathologist participated in an external quality
control programme is a factor that is likely to have led to the unacceptable level of
under-reporting that occurred at the laboratory.
No Accreditation With An Independent Quality Control Authority
5.28 Throughout the time that Dr Bottrill was in practice Gisborne Laboratories was not
accredited with an independent laboratory quality control authority such as TELARC.
Even though the requirements for TELARC accreditation were not as demanding in
the early 1990s as they are now, they still would have deterred Dr Bottrill from
practising as he did. Most importantly, from 1993 onwards, it seems that so long as
Gisborne Laboratories employed only one person to carry out all the cervical cytology
it would have been denied accreditation. Mr Walker said in evidence:
Chair Question You have talked … about the situation of Dr Bottrill doing
all the cytoscreening on his own, in terms of TELARC IANZ accreditation
again looking at it from 1993 to 1996, would TELARC accredit a laboratory
where a single pathologist was doing all the cytoscreening.
A Very definitely not. I have already indicated …those three
laboratories where their cytology accreditation has been suspended, it is as a
result of the loss of their last cytotechnologist. So that a single pathologist
however competent would not meet our requirements of accreditation.
Q So … one of the things that Dr Bottrill would have had to have done
if he wanted to obtain accreditation for the laboratory was to hire a
cytoscreener to work with him.
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A Or to make arrangements for another pathologist to rescreen his
work.
Q Yes.
PROFESSOR DUGGAN INTERJECTS
PROFESSOR DUGGAN: By that comment Mr Walker, it is
acceptable to TELARC that gynaecological slides can be screened by a
pathologist?
A Solely …by a single pathologist, no.
Q Well no, screened by a single pathologist with the quality control
done by another pathologist.
A We would have considered that as an option. It would have been
unusual.…
A I don‟t know of a pathologist in New Zealand at the present point in
time that would have absolute confidence in his or her work without
somebody else having reviewed a good percentage of it, that someone else
could equally be another pathologist or a cytotechnologist.
5.29 In addition to ensuring that more than one qualified person was involved in cervical
cytology TELARC accreditation would have led to improved systems and procedures
at Gisborne Laboratories. By May 1991 TELARC had issued recommendations, which
had been formulated by the Cytology Advisory Liaison Committee, and which
TELARC intended its assessors to discuss with laboratories during accreditation
assessments for cytology. These recommendations were not extensive, however, they
required:
(i) a recommended process for checking abnormal smear tests;
(ii) random rescreening of 10% of negative smear tests;
(iii) they identified maximum annual and daily limits for reading smear
tests;
(iv) they encouraged participation in an external quality control programme;
and
(v) they recommended the phasing out of off-site (home screened) smear
tests.
70
5.30 By June 1991 TELARC had issued the New Zealand Code of Laboratory Management
Practice. This document, which was produced to the Committee as exhibit
BJL/MEDH/5, set out requirements for laboratory practice. These included having in
place laboratory quality control procedures; the purpose of which is to demonstrate
that accurate and reliable tests are being produced, to anticipate potential sources of
error in a laboratory‟s operations and to implement checks at appropriate control
points to detect any errors that should occur.
5.31 Furthermore, from 1991 TELARC recommended that laboratories accredited for
cytology participate in an external quality assurance programme. By 1993
participation in an external quality control programme had become “virtually
essential” for TELARC accreditation. When asked to explain what “virtually
essential” meant Mr Walker described it as indicating a requirement which an
assessment team might impose on a laboratory. And although it was not an absolute
requirement in 1993 it was about to become so within a short period of time, so that
any laboratory which did not participate in an external quality control programme in
1993 and which wanted accreditation would have had to enrol in such a programme in
the very near future if it wanted to obtain or retain its accreditation. Mr Walker told
the Committee :
A Historically, in the absence of an appropriate programme of inter-
laboratory comparison, the requirement of IANZ, TELARC in those days, for
mandatory participation, was not in existence but as those programmes
became more and more developed and more and more accepted by the
industries participating in them, they became progressively more likely to
become requirements of accreditation, the error that we are talking about here
was at the point where it was virtually a requirement, a few years before that
it would not have been a requirement and very soon after that it became a
mandatory requirement.
Q … so when you say virtually essential you are meaning that this is
something that in a very short period of time is going to become essential and
so you are signalling that to the reader of the letter.
A That‟s a very fair assessment of what I intended to say, perhaps I
should have used those sorts of words.
Q And so your expectation would be then that the reader takes that
phrase at their peril and either does something about it immediately or waits
until it becomes an absolute requirement and that that will happen very soon.
A I have every confidence that had Gisborne laboratory taken the next
step and been initially assessed, that the peer assessment team would have
71
required participation in that programme and that was my intent and perhaps
using the words virtually essential doesn‟t appropriately convey that intent.
5.32 Accreditation does not guarantee that laboratories will not under-report an
unacceptable number of smear tests. It focuses on the systems and procedures a
laboratory uses to achieve its results and not on the substance of the results. What it
does is set in place systems and procedures to ensure that a laboratory has
appropriately trained staff, well maintained equipment and recognised methods and
procedures in place. However, if these systems and procedures are properly followed
they should enhance a laboratory‟s performance substantively as well as procedurally
as they are likely to lead to good quality results and to reduce the opportunities for
error.
5.33 Accreditation also creates a culture and an awareness of quality assurance and the
benefits to be derived from it. A laboratory which is attuned to the need for quality
assurance to improve work performance is less likely to produce errors in smear test
reporting than a laboratory where the need for quality assurance is unrecognised.
Moreover, the process of obtaining accreditation involves subjecting a laboratory to a
full review by a team of experts in the field for which accreditation is sought and
thereafter regular inspections. This degree of attention would be likely to bring any
risk associated with a laboratory‟s performance to notice.
5.34 Had Gisborne Laboratories been accredited with TELARC by the end of 1991 the
impact of the CALC inspired recommendations and the New Zealand Code of
Laboratory Management Practice combined with the employment of a second person
to share the reading of cervical cytology would have improved the systems and the
procedures Dr Bottrill followed and this in turn is likely to have reduced his under-
reporting to a more acceptable level. Certainly by 1993 accreditation with TELARC
would have resulted in improved systems and procedures including the introduction of
internal and external quality control and a requirement to share the task of reading
cervical cytology with another person. It would have brought to an end the practices
that the Committee considers are likely to have led to the unacceptable level of under-
reporting. The Committee, therefore, considers that the laboratory not being
accredited is a factor that is likely to have led to an unacceptable level of under-
reporting.
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Inadequate Participation In Continuing Medical Education
5.35 Dr Bottrill‟s specialist training was in anatomical pathology. He was appropriately
trained in cytopathology given the standards of the time during which he trained,
however at that time cytopathology was in its infancy. Since then, cytopathology has
evolved and grown, and the practice has become more specialised. Dr Bottrill
informed the Committee that he had no specialist qualification in cytology; the
examination he sat in the early 1970s to become a member of the College of
Pathologists of Australia had no cytology component. Dr Bottrill‟s qualifications and
experience can be contrasted with recommendations contained in standards the
Cervical Screening Liaison Advisory Committee (CSLAC) sent to TELARC in 1995.
These standards reveal how the perceived need for pathologists to have training in
cytology had increased. They contain a recommendation that pathologists wishing to
practise in cytopathology should have a minimum of two years special supervised
training. Those pathologists who have the qualifications in anatomical pathology but
who lack expertise in cytopathology are advised to undertake appropriate training
prior to taking responsibility for cytological reporting in New Zealand laboratories.
5.36 Competence in a changing field is maintained by undergoing additional formal
training in an accredited training centre and/or through participation in continuing
medical education activities. Dr Bottrill did not undergo additional training.
Dr Bottrill‟s evidence was that he continued his medical education by: attending
approximately six to eight local post graduate meetings per year; biannual attendances
at conferences and workshops relating to cytology and histology; attending the
cytology sessions of the Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia between the
years 1968 to 1993; attending a conference in Mexico of the World Association
Society of Pathology in 1993 and a conference by the same organisation in Auckland
in 1995; and attending the New Zealand Society of Cytology meetings on numerous
occasions, the last being in 1992. He also spent time reading in the library at Gisborne
Hospital. It seems from the evidence the Committee heard that Dr Bottrill‟s
participation in continuing education began to decline in 1993. Furthermore, his
participation at the conferences and workshops he did attend does not appear to have
73
made him realise or gain any insight into the risk he was taking by practising as a sole
practitioner in cervical cytology, nor did it improve his reading of cervical smear tests.
5.37 The Committee considers that the degree to which Dr Bottrill participated in medical
conferences and workshops in the period from 1990 to 1996 was insufficient for him
to improve his cytopathology practices. He could have done so by additional formal
training, however he never underwent such training. In the Committee‟s view more
focussed continuing medical education and additional formal training in cytopathology
would have brought home to Dr Bottrill the danger inherent in the practices followed
at Gisborne Laboratories, and the need to reform the laboratory‟s practices. For this
reason the Committee considers that the failure of Dr Bottrill to participate in
continuing medical education is a factor that is likely to have led to the unacceptable
level of under-reporting that occurred.
Lack Of Awareness And Insight As To How The Laboratory’s Practices Put Patients
At Risk.
5.38 The Committee considers that another feature of the practice of cervical cytology in
Gisborne Laboratories, which was not compatible with the effective or safe delivery of
cervical cytology, was that Dr Bottrill had no awareness of or insight into the extent to
which the laboratory‟s practices put patients at risk. In his evidence to the Committee
he said:
“I think if I were doing it again I wouldn‟t make any major changes. I was
completely unaware at the time that I retired that there was a problem”.
5.39 This lack of awareness and insight as regards the risk inherent in his practice of
cervical cytology probably explains why Dr Bottrill continued to read cervical
cytology on his own until his retirement in March 1996, and why he failed to have in
place any measures to reduce the risk of practising in this way. Dr Bottrill‟s view on
his practice at Gisborne Laboratories is completely at odds with the evidence the
Committee has heard from experts on how a laboratory should carry out cervical
smear test screening and the inherent dangers when carried out by a sole practitioner.
He refused to accept that the following features of his practice contributed to his
under-reporting:
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(i) his lack of expertise in cytopathology and primary screening;
(ii) his lack of appropriate continuing education;
(iii) the laboratory‟s failure to take timely steps to get accredited;
(iv) the laboratory‟s failure to institute appropriate internal and external
quality control;
(v) the laboratory‟s failure to institute a system of peer review; and
(vi) the laboratory‟s failure to have systematic look-back procedure for
patients.
This attitude of Dr Bottrill only confirms for the Committee his unawareness of and
lack of insight into the risks his practice posed to patients.
Factors Relating To The Delivery Of Cytological Services In New Zealand
Between 1990 And March 1996
5.40 From the years 1990 to 1996 cytological services in New Zealand were delivered in
circumstances where:
(i) Laboratories reading cervical cytology were not required to follow
quality control processes or to be accredited with an independent
quality control authority;
(ii) The Government Policy for National Cervical Screening (1991) and the
1993 updated version in relation to laboratories reading cervical
cytology were not well designed;
(iii) The National Cervical Screening Register was not functioning
optimally;
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(iv) There were no performance standards for laboratories, and there were
no reliable data on laboratories‟ performance;
(v) There was no monitoring and evaluation of the performance of
laboratories reading cervical cytology;
(vi) The health authorities did not take heed of the warnings provided by the
failures of screening programmes in other countries;
(vii) There was a failure to ensure all components of the programme where
in place from an early stage.
All of this is indicative of a failure to design and deliver a soundly based cervical
screening programme. The Committee has already identified the factors relating to the
practice of cytology at Gisborne Laboratories that it considers are likely to have led to
the unacceptable level of under-reporting that occurred at that laboratory. The
Committee considers that but for the failure to deliver a soundly based cervical
screening programme the cytology practices at Gisborne Laboratories could not have
continued for as long as they did. If the factors, which the Committee considers the
Programme lacked, had been operative the practice of cervical cytology at Gisborne
Laboratories would have been improved or come to an end. Either way the risk of
unacceptable under-reporting would have been considerably reduced. Thus the
Committee considers that the failure to deliver a soundly based cervical screening
programme is a factor that is likely to have led to the unacceptable under-reporting
that occurred in the Gisborne region. The Committee‟s reasons for reaching this view
are set out below.
No Compulsory Quality Control
5.41 Compulsory quality control including accreditation for all laboratories reading cervical
cytology was not introduced until some time in late 1996. It is difficult to be precise
about when these requirements were introduced as their introduction into individual
laboratories was achieved at different times and through more than one mechanism.
76
What is clear is that before this time quality control (and accreditation) was not
mandatory, even though the need for quality control of laboratories reading cervical
cytology for a cervical screening programme was seen as essential by more than one
authoritative source from as early as the mid- nineteen eighties. A review of some of
the authoritative material is set out below.
5.42 The 1986 Bulletin of the World Health Organisation on Control of Cancer of the
Cervix Uteri recognised the need for quality control to reduce the occurrence of false
negative reports. It said:
“ Quality control systems must be developed in cytology laboratories to keep
the number of false negatives reports as low as possible.” (Emphasis added)
5.43 In 1988 a Department of Health publication titled Towards a More Effective Cervical
Screening Service for Women recognised the need to develop quality control measures
in laboratories reading cervical cytology. It said that:
“ A review of laboratory services for cervical cytology is required. This
review will need to include the development of quality control measures to
ensure that cytological services in laboratories maintain a consistently high
standard.”
In its submission to the Committee the Ministry of Health said that this publication
demonstrated that the Department of Health was “well aware of the issues surrounding
quality relating to a national [screening] programme, including the key issues
surrounding quality in laboratories.”
5.44 In November 1989 the Report Of The Ministerial Review Committee On
Implementation Of A Government Policy for National Cervical Screening was
published. Section 8 of the report covered smear readers and standards of
competency. It began by noting that:“ Laboratories and their staff will play a key role
in the success of any cervical screening programme, as it is principally through them
that cytological information will be collected and recall dates established.” Sections
8.10-8.13 set out the importance of quality controls to ensure consistency in the
reporting of cervical smears.
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5.45 In July 1990 Dr Judith Straton of Division of Public Health University of Western
Australia was engaged by the Department of Health to review of the National Cervical
Screening Programme. She produced a document titled Review of the Government
Policy for National Cervical Screening in which review she wrote:
“Aspects of the laboratory services which need attention include
accreditation and quality control. …It seems that the accreditation of
laboratories by the national laboratory accreditation organisation (TELARC)
is on a voluntary basis and only a relatively small number of laboratories are
accredited. I have not seen the criteria for accreditation used by TELARC
but I understand that they do not at present cover all the necessary areas. I
believe that there should be a system of accreditation of laboratories
carrying out cervical cytology screening, which is tied to the reimbursement
of laboratories for reading smears. Public hospital laboratories should also
be included.” (emphasis added)
5.46 In August 1990 an experts groups which had been established in December 1989 to
advise the Minister of Health on national policy and resource allocation for the
National Cervical Screening Programme presented a report titled Policy Statement Of
The Government Policy for National Cervical Screening Expert Group. Section 12 of
the report dealt with laboratories. The report acknowledged that: “The efficiency of
the cervical screening programme will depend on high standards of smear reading by
laboratory technicians and an acceptable turn-around time for reporting on smears. ”
In section 12.2 the report set out a proposed implementation strategy for the
programme in relation to laboratories. This provided:
“Section 12.2.2 The expert group recommends that by 1991 all cytology
laboratories serving the National Cervical Screening Programme should have
applied for registration with the testing Laboratory Registration Council of
New Zealand (TELARC) and should be TELARC registered by December
1993. The only exceptions will be if TELARC itself is unable to meet these
deadlines or if a laboratory is newly set up, necessitating a reasonable period
of time in which to obtain TELARC registration.
12.2.3 The Department of Health should be responsible for confirming that
those laboratories carrying out cytology screening for the National Cervical
Screening Programme meet the recommendations set out in 12.2.2. Such
confirmation should become a requirement for receiving the laboratory
benefit for reading National Cervical Screening Programme smears.
12.2.4 The criteria for registration by TELARC should be negotiated with
TELARC by CALC and the Department of Health. The criteria will include
guidelines on :
 The reading of a minimum number of smears a year;
 The employment of adequate numbers of suitably qualified staff;
 The maximum workload for each cytoscreener;
 Adequate in-service education;
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 A satisfactory participation of both internal and external quality
assurance procedures;
 Co-operation in providing cytology reports to the cytology register.
12.2.5 The Department of Health, CALC, TELARC and other relevant
organisations will seek standards for the training of cytology laboratory
assistants. The Department of Health is responsible for ensuring that there
are sufficient training facilities to meet the cytology screening workforce
requirements of the National Cervical Screening Programme.
12.2.5 Developing a mechanism for linking the histology results of cervical
tissue submitted to laboratories for diagnosis to the cytology register is an
urgent priority for the Department of Health. The register will also be
developed so that laboratory staff have direct access to a woman‟s previous
smear history when reading smears.
5.47 In July 1991 a report was published in the New Zealand Medical Journal titled Cancer
Screening 1991 Cervical Screening Recommendations: A Working Group Report. The
report commented on the need for quality control of all aspects of cervical screening
including laboratory performance:
“ Quality control of all aspects of cervical screening should be a major
emphasis of the National Cervical Screening Programme. To provide proper
quality control there should be formal evaluation of all the components of the
screening process from recruitment and recall of women to management of
women with abnormal smears. A national register is the essential
management tool to allow this and should be expanded to include the
relevant histology results ensuring correlation and evaluation of cytology
findings. Health educators, smear takers, laboratory staff, computer staff,
colposcopists and therapists should all be appropriately trained and qualified.
Laboratories and sites for therapy should be accredited . Legislation is
essential to allow all laboratories to provide both cytology and histology
results to the register.”(emphasis added)
5.48 In 1991 the Government Policy For National Cervical Screening (1991) was issued.
This was the first written policy for the Programme. It was prepared by the
Department of Health and approved by the Associate Minister of Health. The Policy
was based on the recommendations that were made in the August 1990 report of the
Expert Group. Part 4 of the Policy defined the role of laboratories in the
implementation of the Programme and the expectations of their performance in this
role. Part 4 incorporated most of the recommendations, for quality control of
laboratories, that appear in section 12 of the Expert Group‟s report. It anticipated
laboratories being accredited with TELARC or a similar authority by 1993; and it
described the criteria for accreditation. This included: having a set minimum number
of smears for reading each year; employing adequate numbers of suitably qualified
staff; having maximum workloads for each cytoscreener; making provision for
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adequate in-service education; participating in internal and external quality assurance
procedures and providing cytology reports to the cytology register.
5.49 It seems that pathologists were not in general resistant to compulsory accreditation.
The minutes of a meeting of the Cervical Screening Advisory Committee held on
12 December 1991 record the committee‟s discussion on how to enforce accreditation
of laboratories. Dr Clinton Teague, pathologist, is recorded as saying that he did not
think that accreditation would be a big problem as most laboratories were moving
towards accreditation, and that compulsory accreditation had been accepted by
laboratories as they had had sufficient time to gain accreditation. He is also recorded
as referring to the Australian position where laboratories had to be accredited to claim
Medicare subsidies. The Committee has not seen any material or heard any evidence
in the course of its inquiries that would suggest that pathologists would have strongly
resisted the introduction of compulsory accreditation by making receipt of government
funding conditional on accreditation.
5.50 In 1992 the World Health Organisation published the Cervical Cancer Screening
Programmes‟ Managerial Guidelines. In discussing technical resources for cytological
examination the guidelines state :
“Before a screening programme is started the resources must be in place for
taking the smears and a cytology laboratory must be accessible to examine
and report on the smears. To ensure that the laboratory services are both
efficient and cost effective they should be centralised, each laboratory being
supervised by a fulltime cytolopathologist with an organised system of
quality assurance and continuous education of cytotechnologists. (emphasis
added)
Later in the Guidelines there is a reference to an earlier World Heath Organisation
publication of 1988 dealing with laboratories in which it was recorded that: “ The
laboratory must have adequate quality control procedures in place for cervical
cytology.”
5.51 All of the above shows that at an early stage in the development of the Nation Cervical
Screening Programme there was authoritative material from international and national
sources on the importance of quality control in laboratories reading cervical cytology
for screening programmes. The various reports to the Minister and the Department on
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the establishment of a cervical screening programme all recognised the importance of
quality control. Furthermore, the inclusion of quality control provisions in the Policy
in 1991 shows that by then the Minister and the Department had accepted quality
control was important. Moreover, the Committee was not referred to any material
which suggested that the use of quality control processes in laboratories reading
cervical cytology was unnecessary.
5.52 The Committee‟s view was confirmed by the evidence of Professor McGoogan. She
was critical of the failure to have quality controls in place from the outset. She was
shown a flow diagram that was appended to the draft report of the National Cervical
Screening Workshop of 1988. This flow diagram recorded the points in the
Programme at which quality control and evaluation needed to occur. Professor
McGoogan considered the diagram was a good starting point for implementing quality
control, but that it did not go far enough. When asked to give her opinion on the
Programme‟s failure to adopt the diagram of quality controls and its lack of any
quality controls on laboratory performance up to 1996 her response was:
“ I would be extremely disappointed because by the time the New Zealand Programme was
implemented the need for quality control and evaluation for a screening programme of any
kind was well recognised.
Professor McGoogan considered that if quality controls were not in place from the
outset that they should have been in place by the end of the first cycle of the
programme, that is: three years after its commencement and for good data to be
collected from that time onwards.
5.53 It seems to the Committee that the necessity of quality control processes for reading
cervical smear tests for a screening programme is incontestable. This is not an idea
that has only recently become accepted. The literature to support this view has been
available for many years and certainly some of it pre-dates the National Cervical
Screening Programme. Furthermore the logic of the necessity for quality control is
readily apparent. One significant difference between laboratory diagnostic testing for
a screening programme and laboratory diagnostic testing to discover a suspected
ailment is that in the latter case the patient is unwell and presents with signs and
symptoms. Because the patient is unwell there is bound to be further investigation, if
81
the laboratory misdiagnoses the test, and this should ultimately lead to the correct
diagnosis. None of this applies to a screening programme. A screening programme
involves large numbers of healthy women. The whole purpose of a screening
programme is to detect pre-cancerous abnormalities, which are generally
asymptomatic. This means that a woman who is referred for a cervical smear test will
usually not be displaying any signs. If her smear test is misdiagnosed there is nothing
to alert her or her medical practitioner to that possibility. It, therefore, seems obvious
to the Committee that there are, and always have been, more pressing reasons for
having quality control processes in laboratories reading cervical cytology for screening
programmes than in respect of other diagnostic services. So that, even though during
the period under review general laboratory services were not subject to compulsory
quality control or accreditation requirements, there was good reason to treat cervical
cytology differently. Compulsory quality control and accreditation of laboratories
reading cervical cytology should have formed part of the National Cervical Screening
Programme from the outset. The Committee understands that some laboratories could
not have become accredited immediately. However, those laboratories could have
been accommodated by specifying a lead-in period with a definite expiry date after
which only accredited laboratories would be eligible to receive funding for reading
cervical cytology.
5.54 In 1993 the Policy was updated to accommodate the structural changes in the health
sector. Part 4.1.2 which set out the expectation that laboratories would gain TELARC
accreditation by 1993 was amended by removing the indirect reference to this date and
replacing it with an expectation that accreditation should be achieved within a
reasonable period of time. This weaker statement placed less pressure on laboratories
than the earlier expectation, which at least attempted to place a time limit on the move
towards accreditation. At the same time in 1993 the European Community had issued
guidelines on cervical screening which recognised the importance of quality control in
laboratories. Section 7 of the European Guidelines For Quality Assurance In Cervical
Cancer Screening, which covers quality assurance in the cytology laboratory, stated:
“Quality assurance in cervical cytology is designed to achieve an acceptable
reliability and consistency in the results produced in the cytology
laboratory.”
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Then after defining the terms “internal quality assurance” and “external quality
assurance” the Guidelines continued: “We consider that both schemes are essential for
sound laboratory practice ”(emphasis added). The Guidelines also recognised the
need for accreditation of laboratories with an independent quality control agency:
“Accreditation is assessment of standards by a panel of experts. The
assessment will entail a visit to the laboratory to inspect working conditions
and assess working practises such as staff workload ratio, quality assurance
measures, health and safety preconditions, arrangements for staff training,
quality of record keeping, arrangements for follow up of abnormal smears
etc”
5.55 It was not until late 1996 that compulsory accreditation for cervical cytology was
imposed; and then it occurred in a piecemeal fashion as each of the four Regional
Health Authorities was able to conclude a contract (including compulsory
accreditation) with the diagnostic laboratories which provided it with services. In the
case of the Gisborne region the service contract between Midland Regional Health
Authority and Gisborne Laboratories, was not executed until March 1997. This was
nine years after the Department of Health had first recognised the need to develop
quality control measures to ensure laboratories reading cervical cytology maintained a
high standard.
5.56 The Ministry of Health has submitted to the Committee that there are good reasons
why it took so long to introduce compulsory quality control through requiring
laboratories to be accredited with IANZ or a similar body. These reasons and the
Committee‟s views on them are dealt with in the discussion on Term of Reference
Three, which looks at systemic problems with the National Cervical Screening
Programme. For the purpose of answering Term of Reference Two the Committee
considers that it is necessary only to report on those factors that it considers are likely
to have led to under-reporting. The Committee has already described the benefits of
quality control and laboratory accreditation and the effect they would have had on the
practice of cervical cytology at Gisborne Laboratories. Because it considers that
compulsory quality control (either through TELARC accreditation or a scheme with
similar features which the Department imposed directly as a condition of payment)
would have prevented Gisborne Laboratories from continuing to practise as it did, the
Committee has concluded that the failure to make quality control and laboratory
accreditation compulsory by 1993, at the latest, is a factor that is likely to have led to
83
the under-reporting in the Gisborne region, 1993 being the chosen year in the 1991
Policy for laboratories to have gained accreditation. The Committee is aware that
mistakes can still occur in accredited laboratories, and that accreditation is not a
complete answer to avoiding laboratory errors. In this case, however, accreditation
would have stopped those practices at Gisborne Laboratories that led to unacceptable
under-reporting.
Design Faults Of The Government Policy For National Cervical Screening (1991) As
It Related To Laboratories Reading Cervical Cytology
5.57 The laboratory component of the 1991 Policy and the updated 1993 version was set
out in clause 4 of both documents. It was much the same as the recommendations for
laboratories reading cervical cytology in section 12 of the Expert Group‟s report of
1990. Clause 4 provided
“4.1.2 All cytology laboratories servicing the National Cervical Screening
Programme should be registered with the Testing Laboratory Registration
Council of New Zealand (TELARC) or other recognised authority. It
expected that laboratories not so registered will apply and gain such
registration. A reasonable period of time will be allowed for
laboratories to obtain registration. This may take up to two years.
4.1.3 The Department of Health will be responsible for confirming that
those laboratories carrying out cytology screenings for the National
Cervical Screening Programme meet the requirements set out in 4.1.4.
4.1.4 The criteria for registration by TELARC or other recognised authority
will be established by the cytology advisory liaison committee. The
Department of Health will be consulted. The criteria will include :
 Reading of a minimum number of smears a year;
 Employment of adequate numbers of suitably qualified staff;
 Maximum workload for each cytoscreener;
 Adequate in-service education;
 Satisfactory participation in both internal and external quality assurance
procedures;
 Provision of cytology reports to the cytology register.
4.1.5 The Department of Health, the Cytology Advisory Liaison
Committee, TELARC and other relevant organisations will monitor
standards for the training of cytology laboratory assistants.”
5.58 The Committee has already discussed in the preceding paragraphs the importance of
quality control, including laboratory accreditation. Here, the focus of the Committee‟s
interest is on the special accreditation for laboratories reading cervical cytology that
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was planned in clause 4 of the Government National Cervical Screening Policies
issued in 1991 and 1993. The clause specified a number of criteria for inclusion in
TELARC‟s general criteria for accreditation. These were additional criteria which the
Policy intended the Cytology Advisory Liaison Committee (CALC) to develop in
consultation with the Department and then for TELARC to apply them when it came
to accreditation of laboratories reading cervical cytology. Clause 4 demonstrates the
Policy’s intent to shape the criteria for TELARC accreditation for laboratories reading
cervical cytology to include requirements which had been recognised overseas as
being beneficial to the success of a screening programme. Three paragraphs of clause
4 are significant; these are:4.1.2; 4.1.3 and 4.1.4
5.59 Though the inclusion of clause 4 demonstrates that the Minister and the Department
recognised the importance of quality control for laboratories, and that the intent of the
Policy was for laboratories servicing the Programme to be accredited with an
independent quality control authority, the poor design of the Policy did nothing to
guarantee that occurred. Paragraph 4.1.2 did no more than to state that laboratories
“should be” registered with an accreditation authority. This is different from
stipulating that laboratories must be accredited. There is nothing in the language of
paragraph 4.1.2 that compelled the Department to ensure a laboratory became
accredited. The paragraph does no more than exhort laboratories to gain accreditation.
In the Committee‟s view, once the importance of accreditation was accepted, and
provision made for it in the Policy, the design of the Policy should have ensured that
accreditation would happen.
5.60 In the 1991 Policy paragraph 4.1.2 contained an expectation that laboratories that were
not accredited would be given a reasonable period of time to do so, (up to two years).
This expectation was ineffective. If laboratories resisted or were dilatory in taking
steps to gain accreditation there was nothing that the Department could do under the
Policy, or otherwise, to compel them to become accredited. This was so, even though
diagnostic laboratories reading cervical cytology were fully paid for this service from
government funds. The Committee comments in its report on Term of Reference
Three on the Ministry of Health‟s explanation for how this came about. What the
Committee is concerned to report on here is its view that a well designed cervical
screening policy is one which recognises the need for quality control and accreditation
85
of laboratories and is designed to ensure these features are in place. The 1991 Policy
could not do this. This is one of the reasons why the Committee considers the 1991
Policy to be poorly designed. Compulsory accreditation, based on the criteria in
paragraph 4.1.4, would have brought the practices followed at Gisborne Laboratories
to an end. In so far as the Policy permitted Gisborne Laboratories to continue to
practice its poor design is a factor that is likely to have led to the under-reporting at
Gisborne.
5.61 The criteria in 4.1.4 are important. For example: the criterion regarding a minimum
number of smears per annum. In 1991 and up to the time of Dr Bottrill‟s retirement
Gisborne Laboratories was reading no more than 5000 smears per year. At the time
the internationally recommended minimum number was well in excess of this number.
The World Health Bulletin on Control of Cancer of the Cervix Uteri had stated in
1986 that:
“Cytology services should be centralised. A large volume of work
contributes to the successful operation of a cytology laboratory because a
specialised division of labour is possible and a large number of abnormal
smears representing various pathologies will help to maintain the
cytotechnologists skills. In general laboratories that screen fewer than
20,000 specimens annually are not cost-efficient and cannot support either a
training programme or a full-time cytotechnologist Preferably the annual
number of specimens should be 50,000 or more.
A publication from the Council On Scientific Affairs, American Medical Association
JAMA 1989 Quality Assurance In Cervical Cytology( exhibit RGB/MOH/3) reported
that the American Society of Cytology would only accredit laboratories that received a
minimum of 10,000 gynaecologic smears per annum or maintained staff of at least one
cytopathologist and one full time cytotechnologist.
5.62 In the Review of the National Cervical Screening Programme, which was written in
1990, Judith Straton reported on the need for setting a minimum number of smear
tests. She saw no practical difficulty in implementing this requirement as she
considered that smear tests could be easily transported to those laboratories which
were reading a large number of smears and which could meet a compulsory minimum
requirement. She realised that a compulsory minimum number would exclude some
86
laboratories from reading cervical cytology but it appears to the Committee that in her
view this would only benefit the Programme. She said:
“ The issue of the minimum number of screening smears which are essential
to maintain a competent screening service is one which needs to be
addressed. Apparently there are laboratories in New Zealand which are
reading fewer than 50 smears per year, compared with the minimum in the
Untied Kingdom of 15-20,000 smears per year. Obviously with a smaller
and more scattered population one may not be able to use quite such stringent
criteria, but communications in New Zealand are good and smears can easily
be sent from place to place. This problem needs to be addressed urgently. It
would be very difficult for laboratories reading as few as 50 smears per year
to maintain a suitable level of competence or have any systematic quality
control, and this issue must be faced. Women have the right to expect a
minimum level of competence in the reading of their smears.”(emphasis
added)
5.63 From the material the Committee has seen it is clear that everyone working with the
Programme thought, in principle, that a compulsory minimum number of smears was
needed to maintain screeners‟ competence. And, that 5000 smears per annum was a
low number of smears to read in order to maintain competence. However, by setting
a minimum number the Programme would have excluded some laboratories, including
hospital laboratories, from reading cervical cytology. In New Zealand cervical
cytology had always been read by any laboratory that wanted to do so. Furthermore,
there was no history of the Department or the Ministry of Health preferring certain
laboratories to others when it came to funding for diagnostic services. Therefor, the
setting of a minimum number required a major change in approach. It seems to the
Committee that ultimately the issue was too difficult to face and nothing was done,
even though the Policy intended a minimum number of smears to be set and everyone
recognised the benefits of laboratories which read a large number of smear tests. Once
again the Policy had no means of ensuring that its intent was achieved.
5.64 The issue of setting a compulsory minimum number of smears for reading per year
was finally faced in 2000 by the Health Funding Authority when, in its proposed
standards for laboratories reading cervical cytology, it proposed a minimum of 12,000
smears per year. The rationale behind setting a minimum number of smears per annum
is that unless a laboratory processes a sufficient number of smears the screeners cannot
maintain their competence. Simply by ensuring that a set minimum number of smears
for reading each year (which reflected international minimum numbers) was actually
87
in force the Policy would have excluded Gisborne Laboratories from reading cervical
cytology.
5.65 Clause 4.1.3 placed the responsibility on the Department of Health to confirm that
laboratories carrying out cytology reading for the policy met the requirements of 4.1.4.
However, as accreditation was not compulsory clause 4.1.3 had little effect, and the
evidence is that the Department of Health did little to ensure that laboratories met the
requirements set out in 4.1.4.
5.66 The Committee heard evidence from Mr Mules, the former Chief Executive of the
Midland Regional Health Authority. He had previously been employed as the General
Manager of the Bay of Plenty Area Health Board. In this capacity he would have had
experience of how the Policy of 1991 worked in relation to area health boards. He had
also undertaken work for the Health Reforms Directorate of the Department of Health.
He appeared to the Committee to be a witness who was informed about the
Programme and how it functioned prior to the health restructuring in 1993. He told
the Committee that one of the aims of the Programme prior to 1993 had been to
introduce quality standards for laboratories reading cervical cytology but that the
method by which such standards would be enforced was unclear to him as in his view
there was no appropriate accountability structure in place:
“One of the aims of the National Cervical Screening Programme was to
introduce quality standards around the reading of slides by pathologists, a
process that requires the pathologist to exercise their professional judgement
after actually viewing the slide and cannot be automated. Those aims were
explained under the heading “Laboratories” at page 5 of the 1991 Policy”. …
Mr Mules then referred to the 1991 Policy, which stated that the Department of Health
would be responsible for confirming that laboratories carrying out cytology screening
met TELARC requirements and said:
“To my knowledge this was the first time that an attempt was made to have
private laboratories agree with an external agency (in this case Department of
Health) to develop and implement quality standards. How this is to be
enforced in the absence of an appropriate accountability structure is
unclear.” (emphasis added)
88
5.67 Mr Mules evidence on the 1991 Policy confirms for the Committee the impression it
gained from other evidence that the 1991 Policy was designed without any provision
put in place to enforce the Policy, should the need arise. The overall tenor of the
Policy as regards laboratories is to set out statements that essentially describe good
practice and then to leave it to the good will of the laboratories to respond to these
exhortations. In the Committee‟s view this is insufficient. A well designed Policy
should require laboratories to practise quality control and to be accredited with an
appropriate authority, and it should ensure that there is a means of compelling
laboratories to comply with the Policy’s intent if they fail to respond.
5.68 When the Policy was updated in 1993, to take into account the structural changes in
the delivery of health services, the amendments to clause 4 only exacerbated its poor
design. It has already been noted in the report that the two year time frame within
which accreditation was expected to be achieved was removed. More importantly, the
division of responsibility in the updated Policy between the new Ministry of Health,
(which had replaced the Department of Health), and the four new Regional Health
Authorities, (which had assumed much of the Department of Health‟s operational
responsibilities), was poorly designed. This was so even though the updated Policy
described itself as being:
“ revised and updated to accurately reflect the structural changes to the
health sector, the changes to the National Cervical Screening Programme and
Register… The purpose of this revision is to update the policy for regional
health authorities, the Public Health Commission and for cervical screening
programme managers and service providers. The update makes no changes
to the goals, objectives, or targeting sections of the 1991 policy document.”
The wording of clause 4 remained the same except that the Ministry of Health was
substituted for the Department of Health and the statement in clause 4.1.2 that
TELARC accreditation may take up to two years was removed. No account appears to
have been taken of the new policy-making and advisory role of the Ministry and its
reduced ability to carry out operational activities. This change from a government
department to a ministry with a policy-making role meant that the new Ministry of
Health was less well placed than the Department of Health to carry out the role clause
4.1.3 gave to it.
89
5.69 The Ministry did consider whether it was appropriate for the Programme to remain
with the Ministry, given its role in the new health structure. An internal memo of 18
March 1993 from Sonja Easterbrook-Smith to the Director-General acknowledges that
the role of nationally co-ordinating the Programme was anomalous in a policy advice
Ministry. Nevertheless, a decision was made to retain that role, and the
responsibilities the Policy of 1991 had imposed on the Department of Health, within
the Ministry. Once a decision was made to retain those features of the Programme
within the Ministry, the 1993 updated Policy should have been designed to ensure that
the effective delivery of the Programme was not compromised by any resulting
anomaly.
5.70 Ms Judith Glackin, who gave evidence for the Ministry of Health, told the Committee
that the Ministry could not carry out the role of confirming that laboratories met the
criteria in 4.1.4 as the Ministry had no means of discharging this task. She said that
the Ministry sought, instead, to discharge this task by ensuring that laboratories were
TELARC accredited:
“Paragraph 4.1.3 could be read as intending that the Ministry would in some
way be responsible for confirming that laboratories were meeting all the
criteria required for TELARC registration. This was clearly not possible, as
the Ministry had no direct relationship or influence over laboratories after
RHA [ Regional Health Authority] contracts replaced the previous payment
arrangements under Part II of the Social Security Act 1964. Ensuring that
laboratories were accredited by TELARC or another suitable quality
assurance programme was seen as the way of ensuring that laboratories met
quality standards.
However, the evidence shows that the Ministry did nothing to ensure that laboratories
were TELARC accredited. All that it did was to include in its funding agreements
with the regional health authorities a provision that they use “ reasonable endeavours
to ensure” laboratory accreditation. To ensure something is done is to make certain, to
secure or to guarantee that it is done. Requiring regional health authorities to use their
“reasonable endeavours to ensure accreditation” does not amount to making certain,
guaranteeing or securing accreditation. Thus the Ministry failed to discharge its
responsibilities in clause 4.1.3, however that clause may be interpreted.
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5.71 The Ministry‟s inability to perform the role clause 4.1.3 placed upon it was recognised
by the Cytology Liaison Advisory Committee. In June 1994, when the 1993 Policy
was being reviewed, this committee commented in a submission for the review that:
“The Ministry of Health does not have the expertise and nor would it seem an
appropriate function of the Ministry of Health to confirm that laboratories
were meeting detailed requirements relating to TELARC accreditation.”
However, because of delays in the completion of the policy review the wording in the
1993 Policy remained unchanged until a new Policy document was issued in June
1996. This was after Dr Bottrill‟s retirement.
5.72 Ms Glackin referred to the 1994/95 Funding Agreements between the Ministry and the
Regional Health Authorities which required the authorities to use their “reasonable
endeavours to ensure” that all laboratories providing laboratory services for cervical
cytology and histology were registered with TELARC or an equivalent quality
assurance programme. She said that these funding agreements were between the
Minister and the Regional Health Authorities and that they were “the primary
accountability documents”.
5.73 All the funding agreements from 1994 until 1997/98 refer to the 1991 Policy, even
though that Policy was based upon a health structure of a Department of Health and 14
area health boards. The Committee received no explanation for why the funding
agreements referred to the 1991 Policy. Although the 1993 Policy had been updated
to make specific reference to the new health structure involving the Ministry of Health
and the regional health authorities the funding agreements failed to record this. By the
1997/98 funding agreement a new policy had been published in 1996 and the 1997/98
funding agreement referred to the new Policy. The Committee was told that, the
performance monitoring branch of the Ministry of Health – which was the branch
responsible for issuing the funding agreements – was not advised about the updated
version and so until 1996 the funding agreements referred to the 1991 Policy.
Although the funding agreements may have referred to the 1991 Policy, from the
evidence it appears that everyone understood that it was the 1993 updated version that
applied. It would have been difficult to apply the 1991 Policy after the health
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restructuring as that Policy allocated responsibilities to the Department of Health and
the area health boards.
5.74 Clause 10.4 of the 1994/95 funding agreement read :
“10.4 The RHA agrees to use its reasonable endeavours to ensure –
10.4.4 All laboratories providing laboratory services for cervical
cytology and histology -
(b) are registered with TELARC (the Testing
Laboratory Registration Council of New Zealand)
or an equivalent quality assurance programme;”
(emphasis added)
Clause s4.11.5 of the 1995/96 funding agreement and clause s5.3.20 of the 1996/97
funding agreement also repeated this requirement. However, in addition to these
clauses, clause 10.3 of the 94/95 funding agreement, clause 4.11.4 of the 95/96
funding agreement and clause 5.3.19 of the 96/97 funding agreement, provided that
the National Cervical Screening Programme, and the cervical screening services, were
to be consistent, inter alia, with the Government Policy for National Cervical
Screening (1991).
5.75 Ms Glackin accepted that the impact of clauses 10.3, 4.11.4 and 5.3.19 was to
incorporate the 1991 Policy document as a term of the funding agreement :
“Q It seems that the 1991 Policy was actually incorporated into the
funding agreements for 94/95?
A Yes, that is how it reads.
Q And if you would turn next to the funding agreements 95/96 and go
to page 112, … once again the 1991 policy document is made a term of the
funding agreement is it not?
A It is
Q Anyone reading the funding agreements seeing that the 91 Policy
was part of the funding agreement and going to the 91 Policy para 4.1.3
would conclude that the Ministry of Health would be responsible for
confirming that the laboratories met the requirements set out in 4.1.4?
A Yes.
Q And I understand your evidence is that practically speaking, because
the Ministry had no direct relationship or influence over laboratories, it
couldn‟t discharge its responsibility which it had under 4.1.3 of the Policy?
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A The mechanism available to the Ministry was through the Regional
Health Authority funding agreement and as you have pointed out that
referred to the 91 Policy so yes it would appear that was the case.
Q So it seems then that the Ministry … knowingly allowed itself to be
placed in a situation where it could no longer responsibly carry out its
responsibilities under 4.1.3.
A I believe that‟s the case and I think the problem associated with this
is the one I refer to later in my brief, which is a delay in the review of the
Policy. At the time the Policy was reviewed in 1993 it was envisaged that
the review would be completed in 1994, in fact it was not completed until
1996 which meant that the Policy stood as it had been originally worded.
5.76 This means that, although the updated 1993 Policy intended the Ministry to be
responsible for confirming that laboratories carrying out cytology screening for the
Programme met the accreditation criteria in clause 4.1.4, this could not be done and,
therefore, it was not done. Ms Glackin accepted that there was nothing about
clause 4.1.3 which was ambiguous about the responsibility it conferred on the
Ministry. She accepted that on reading the Policy document it appeared the Ministry
was responsible for carrying out clause 4.1.3.
“Q The Policy document says the Ministry of Health will be responsible
and is it fair to say on reading 4.1.3 there is nothing ambiguous about that
responsibility?
A There is nothing ambiguous about the wording, the problem there
was no apparent way in which that responsibility could have been carried
out.”
Thus the 1993 updated Policy, produced by the Ministry of Health, gave to the
Ministry a role which it could not fulfil. Hence, between 1993 and 1996 the intent of
the Programme's policy document did not reflect the reality of the Programme‟s
delivery.
5.77 Mr Mules gave evidence on the 1993 Policy which suggested to the Committee that
the Midland Regional Health Authority‟s understanding of its responsibilities to the
Programme was confused by the difference in the allocation of responsibility in the
Policy and the Funding Agreements. He said that the Midland Regional Health
Authority had not treated the laboratory component of the Programme as a priority
because it considered that it was the Ministry‟s responsibility. He described the 1993
Policy in this way:
93
“The responsibilities of the Ministry of Health, the Regional Health
Authorities, Public Health Commission, Cervical Screening Advisory
Committee and the Cytology Advisory Liaison Committee are explained at
page 8 of the 1993 Policy. The responsibility of the Ministry of Health for
introducing quality standards around the reading of slides by pathologists
was continued from the role of the Department of Health in the 1991 Policy.”
For the Regional Health Authorities the specific laboratory component of the
National Cervical Screening Programme was a relatively low priority
because we believed that the Ministry was responsible for it. Our National
Cervical Screening Programme priorities were enrolment of women,
improving access to screening and treatment services, and ensuring collection
and communication of data from the local programme directly to the
Ministry.”
5.78 Later in his evidence Mr Mules confirmed his views on the relationship between the
funding agreements under which the regional health authorities were operating and the
Government Policy for National Cervical Screening. He said :
“Between 1991 and 1996 the Department/Ministry of Health was responsible
for laboratory quality in respect of the National Cervical Screening
Programme, covering both definition of the criteria for TELARC registration,
and confirmation of which laboratories were eligible to carry out National
Cervical Screening Programme screening work. The Department/Ministry
also controlled the data from the National Cervical Screening Programme
Register that allowed comparative monitoring and analysis of laboratory
activity. Midland did not have such access.”
5.79 When Mr Mules was asked whether or not, to his knowledge, the Ministry was aware
that the Midland Regional Health Authority did not consider itself responsible for
confirming whether or not laboratories were TELARC accredited, his response was
that it was commonly understood amongst all parties that the Regional Health
Authority focus was on enrolment and colposcopy in respect of the Programme.
“Q I want to be clear then, you can only give evidence of your
experience of dealings with the Ministry during this time, but from your
dealings with the Ministry did you gain the impression that the Ministry was
aware Midland Regional Health Authority believed because of the cervical
screening policy in 4.1.2 and 4.1.4 that the laboratory component of the
Programme was the responsibility of the Ministry.
A If you are referring to those aspects of the laboratory components as
described in 4.1.2 to 4.1.5, yes. I was never party to any discussions that
would have made people think otherwise. We were responsible in the
context of moving from section 51 to laboratory contracts that would have
introduced TELARC registration, but that was in a generic sense.
Q As I read your evidence you are saying the Regional Health
Authority believed the Ministry was responsible for the laboratory
component of the screening Programme.
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A Yes, as laid out in Policy guidelines.
Q The point is if that was the understanding of the Regional Health
Authority, then whether or not there was any monitoring and evaluation of
the laboratory component of the Programme would depend very much on
whether the Ministry recognised that it was responsible for that part of the
Programme, wouldn‟t it?
A Yes, it would depend on their interpretation of the Cervical
Screening Policy and the funding agreement.
Q What I am trying to find out from your knowledge is whether or not
the Ministry was aware of the Regional Health Authority view.
A I‟ve got no reason to believe that they weren‟t, and Jane Hudson
was in frequent communication with the national co-ordinator and as you‟ve
seen from the service requirement definition Jane has carried forward the
Policy into those documents. I would have thought she would not have done
that if she had a contrary view.
Q The outcome would be if the Regional Health Authority relying on
the documentation believed the Ministry was responsible for the laboratory
component of the Programme in terms of monitoring and evaluation, but if
the Ministry itself believed that it couldn‟t carry that out as heard from
Ms Glackin, it would really mean no-one was doing the job, wouldn‟t it?
A One can assume that.
5.80 Mr Lambie was responsible for the unit that prepared and negotiated the funding
agreements. He was asked to comment on Mr Mule‟s evidence about the regional
health authorities‟ understanding of their obligations under the funding agreements.
Mr Lambie accepted that there was some ambiguity between for example clause 10.3
and 10.4 of the 94/95 funding agreement, however, he said that no regional health
authority had taken this up with the Ministry at the time the agreements were being
negotiated:
“Q …if you go to 10.3… it says the regional health authority is to
purchase cervical screening services …this Programme and the cervical
screening services are to be consistent with … the government‟s 1991 policy
for national cervical screening. And then under 10.4 it says the regional
health authority is to use reasonable endeavours to ensure a number of things
including TELARC accreditation...I think the difficulty is that in 10.3 there is
the reference to the purchasing of service being consistent with the
government's‟1991 Policy. So I think what Mr Mules was saying, well under
the 1991 Policy certain responsibilities remained with the Ministry …in
terms of paras 4.1.2 to 4.1.4 of the Policy therefore you you‟ve got a tension
within the funding agreements between, by incorporating the 1991 Policy,
that puts a responsibility on the Ministry, which also para 10.4 appears to be
putting on the regional health authorities. What do you do when you‟ve
reached the end of the year and you say “ well who should have done what?”
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A I accept that there is some potential ambiguity. However, if that
ambiguity had been recognised at the time I think it would have been cleared
up. I think that the key part of this funding agreement was under 10.4.
Q And to the best of your knowledge did the regional health
authorities ever say to the Ministry, “well we actually think the incorporation
of the government‟s 1991 Policy …means the Ministry has certain
obligations about laboratory services and cytology as set out in that Policy
agreement which conflict with our funding agreement responsibilities?
A To the best of my knowledge that never occurred.
5.81 There was clearly confusion between the two health agencies in relation to their
respective roles under the 1993 Policy. Each agency appears to have had its own
interpretation of the responsibilities that the Policy and the funding agreements placed
upon them, and they each appear to have been totally unaware of their different
interpretations. Because of this neither said anything to the other about the confusion.
5.82 The presence of this confusion is confirmed for the Committee by the review that the
Ministry of Health carried out for the Associate Minister of Health in April 1996. At
the time it was considered that accountability arrangements between the Ministry and
the Regional Health Authorities were contributing to problems with the Programme.
Ms Glackin informed the Committee that the official‟s report dated 11 April 1996
identified three key problems for the Programme. One of these was confusion
between the Ministry and the Regional Health Authorities over “accountabilities for
the Programme”. The Ministry appears to have recognised at the time of the review
that the Regional Health Authorities “saw themselves as purchasing a series of
individual components which contributed to a programme owned by the Ministry
rather than purchasing an integral service for women.”
5.83 The practical effect of this confusion is that it seems from 1993 until the new Policy in
1996 the Ministry of Health considered that it could not carry out the responsibilities
the Policy placed upon it in clause 4 and, therefore, it did not specifically attempt to do
so. But the Regional Health Authorities were not stepping into the breach created by
the Ministry‟s inability to carry out its responsibilities because as they saw it the
Policy placed the responsibility for the laboratory component of the Programme on the
Ministry. The end result of this confusion was that little, if anything, was done in
terms of clause 4 of the Policy.
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5.84 Certainly, in response to their contractual requirements under the funding agreements
with the Ministry, the Regional Health Authorities were working towards requiring all
laboratories to gain accreditation for all of their services. Even then, the funding
agreements only required Regional Health Authorities to exert “reasonable
endeavours” to achieve accreditation. But, as Mr Mules acknowledged, this was
different from the specialised accreditation that the Policy contemplated in clause
4.1.4 for laboratories reading cytology for the Programme. The funding agreements
did not reflect the content of the Policy; they made no attempt to distinguish cervical
cytology laboratory services from other laboratory services by requiring cervical
cytology to be read only by TELARC accredited laboratories. No one was doing
anything meaningful to ensure that the criteria envisaged in clause 4.1.4 were actually
being developed, and once in place adhered to. There were many discussions with
various advisory groups about what should be done, but ultimately nothing meaningful
was done by the Ministry in relation to its role in clause 4 of the Policy.
5.85 There is another aspect to this confusion. On 24 November 1994 the Women‟s Health
Action group wrote to the Minister of Health regarding a woman‟s false-negative
smear result and asked, inter alia, what structures were in place to monitor laboratory
quality and what information did the Programme have about false negative rates in
laboratories used by the Programme, how were false negative rates monitored and how
were they reduced in laboratories where the rate was high. The Associate Minister
responded to the Women‟s Health Action group on 30 March 1995 by advising them
that:
“A variety of measures are in place or are being developed to ensure that the
quality of smear reading is as high as possible. The 1995/96 Policy
guidelines for regional health authorities state that regional health authorities
must ensure that all laboratories providing cervical cytology and histology
services are registered with … TELARC or an equivalent programme. The
National Cervical Screening Programme anticipates that all laboratories will
have TELARC (or equivalent accreditation) by the end of 1996. Several
years ago the cytology advisory liaison committee made a number of
recommendations to TELARC relating to performance of cytology in
medical laboratories. These recommendations which were accepted by
TELARC at that time, have been recently revised and upgraded and a
provisional list of recommendations is currently being considered by
TELARC.
As part of the TELARC registration process laboratories are required to
demonstrate both internal and external quality assurance participation. While
TELARC guidelines do not specify which quality assurance procedure
97
should be followed in relation to external quality assurance the great majority
of laboratories are now registered with the Royal College of Pathologists of
Australasia Quality Assurance Programme in Cytology. With regard to
internal quality assurance there are a number of procedures which follow…”
Further on in the letter the Associate Minister said:
“With the reconfigured National Cervical Screening Register and the
comparison of histology and cytology data, New Zealand will have
potentially one of the strongest national monitoring capabilities in the world.
At this early stage, however, I am advised that there is insufficient data to
monitor particular laboratories. I understand, however, that laboratories
operate on an informal process of review where false negatives are identified.
5.86 This letter illustrates the confusion which abounded around the Programme at that
time. Although the Associate Minister writes that the 1995/96 Policy Guidelines For
Regional Health Authorities state that regional health authorities must ensure all
laboratories providing cervical cytology are registered with TELARC, the 1995/96
Guidelines do not say that. They were issued annually and outline the Government‟s
priorities for health and disability services and the services to be purchased by regional
health authorities. The 1994/95 Guidelines said, in relation to cervical screening, that
regional health authorities:
“Are to ensure that their purchase arrangements for laboratory services for
cervical cytology and histology reflect the requirement that all laboratories
servicing the National Cervical Screening Programme should be registered
with TELARC.” (emphasis added)
The 1995/96 Guidelines (to which the Minister had referred in her letter) said:
“Regional health authorities are to ensure that their purchase arrangements
for laboratory services for cervical cytology and histology reflect the
following requirements that all laboratories serving the National Cervical
Screening Programme :
 Forwarding cervical smear test results (not accompanied by written
notice of objection) to the National Cervical Screening Register in the
agreed format;
 Provision of timely cervical smear test results to smear takers.”
Nothing else is said in the 1995/96 Guidelines about accreditation of laboratories with
TELARC or any other authority. When the Associate Minister wrote in March 1995
that regional health authorities must ensure all laboratories providing cervical cytology
were registered with TELARC, she was incorrect. Under the funding agreements of
that time they were obliged to use no more than their reasonable endeavours to ensure
laboratories were accredited. The Associate Minister had misunderstood the true
98
effect of the Programme‟s Policy documents of 1991 and 1993, the Policy Guidelines
To Regional Health Authorities and the Funding Agreements in force at that time.
Nowhere in any of those documents, covering the period from 1993 to 1996, was there
an obligation specifying that all laboratories providing cervical cytology must be
registered with TELARC or an equivalent authority.
5.87 The Associate-Minster‟s response shows that the officials advising her did not realise
the true effect of these documents. This is confirmed by exhibit GRB/MOH/24 at
page 36 which is a Ministry action sheet. It records the officials‟ advice to the
Associate Minister to enable her to respond to the Women‟s Health Action Group.
The action sheet records that the “National Cervical Screening Programme is the first
programme which has ever made registration compulsory through TELARC.” This
statement is plainly wrong. At the time the advice was given (sometime between
November 1994 and March 1995) TELARC accreditation of laboratories reading
cervical cytology for the Programme was not compulsory. This appears to have been
picked up in the Associate Minister‟s letter as that states that the Programme
anticipates all laboratories will be TELARC accredited by the end of 1996. This
statement contradicts the earlier (incorrect) statement that regional health authorities
must ensure all laboratories reading cervical cytology are TELARC accredited. All of
this demonstrates that neither the Associate Minister nor her officials had a clear
understanding of the Programme‟s requirements of laboratories reading cervical
cytology.
5.88 The 26 July 1995 minutes of the Cervical Screening Liaison Advisory Committee
show that the Programme‟s national co-ordinator also had no clear understanding of
the Programme‟s requirements of laboratories. She is recorded as asking the advisory
committee for “clarification on what the Programme would do if a laboratory had not
improved with the insistence of TELARC”. The minute records that the advisory
committee “acknowledged such a situation would have to be investigated and may
require further action.” This minute shows that the national co-ordinator was unclear
about what to do if a laboratory was not bringing itself up to accreditation standard.
The reality is that as at July 1995 there was nothing that the Programme could do. The
Programme had no authority over laboratories; there was no direct contractual
relationship between the Minister/Ministry of Health and laboratories. At that time
99
laboratories contracted with regional health authorities. The contracts did not require
laboratories to be accredited with TELARC or any other quality control authority,
therefore a laboratory did not need TELARC‟s approval to perform cervical cytology.
If the Programme staff became concerned about the performance of a laboratory the
only legal means of addressing the problem would have been to request the regional
health authority which had contracted with the laboratory, to exercise any contractual
powers it may have had to suspend the laboratory. The other possibility would have
been for the Minister of Health to issue a directive to the regional health authority
pursuant to his or her power in s.40 of the Health and Disability Services Act.
However, the exercise of a s.40 directive would have been an extreme measure. In
any event the effectiveness of either an informal request or a s.40 directive would have
depended on whether or not the regional health authority had the contractual power to
suspend a laboratory from reading cervical cytology. What concerns the Committee is
that the national co-ordinator appears not to have understood the legal position, and
she did not know that the Programme could take no steps against a poorly performing
laboratory. She should have known that under the new health structure the
Programme‟s staff had no power to take remedial action against a laboratory that was
either performing poorly or failing to meet TELARC‟s requirements. This is a further
indication to the Committee of the lack of understanding and confusion among those
working in the Programme regarding the requirements it placed on laboratories and
how the Policy fitted with the Guidelines to Regional Health Authorities and the
funding agreements.
5.89 The confusion surrounding the accountability arrangements and the impact this had on
the delivery of the responsibilities in clause 4 of the Policy can be attributed to the
poor design of the 1993 updated Policy. The design failed to ensure that the structure
of the Policy and the allocation of responsibilities under that structure fitted well with
the newly re-structured health sector and the accountability arrangements between the
Ministry and the Regional Health Authorities (even though the 1993 Policy recorded
that it had been revised and updated to accurately reflect the structural changes to the
health sector). If the Ministry could not carry out its responsibilities in clause 4.1.3
these responsibilities should have been placed with an agency in the new health
structure, which was well placed to carry them out.
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5.90 The Policies of 1991 and 1993 were operative throughout the time that Dr Bottrill was
practising at Gisborne Laboratories. The inclusion in both Policies of an intention that
quality control be assured by accreditation with TELARC or another similar authority
shows that the Department and the Ministry accepted the importance of accreditation
and saw that it was needed.
5.91 However, both Policies had no intrinsic means of compelling accreditation. Nor were
they designed around extrinsic means of compelling accreditation. Prior to 1993 the
Ministry believed it was powerless to enforce accreditation. Dr Boyd told the
Committee that, once the National Cervical Screening Programme was in operation,
the Department had sought advice on making laboratory accreditation with TELARC
or a similar authority a condition of payment under the Social Security (Laboratory
Diagnostic Services) Regulations from one of its in-house solicitors. The advice the
Department received was that it was doubtful as to whether the regulations permitted
this. After 1993 the power the Ministry had through the funding agreements with the
regional authorities was not exercised in a way which would have secured compulsory
accreditation. This was implicitly accepted by Dr Lambie, the Deputy Director-
General, Corporate in the Ministry of Health. Dr Lambie‟s evidence was that many of
the service obligations in the funding agreements between the Ministry and the
regional health authorities were qualified by the words “reasonable endeavours.” At
the time the Ministry had three types of service obligation which it imposed on
regional health authorities through the funding agreements. These were: mandatory
obligations; obligations to use “best endeavours to ensure” something was done and
obligations to use “reasonable endeavours to ensure” something was done. Of the
three types of obligation, the obligation to use reasonable endeavours was the weakest.
The end result was that the National Cervical Screening Programme was powerless to
ensure that the cytology of the women, whom the Programme was designed to benefit,
was competently read.
5.92 Mr Lambie also accepted that in terms of an attempt to measure the progress towards
TELARC accreditation, that would be more easily achieved if there were a finite time
frame in place. And that once the finite period of two years in paragraph 4.1.2 was
removed from that paragraph in the 1993 updated version of the Policy, progress
towards accreditation became more difficult:
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“Q For example, under the 91 policy when you got to 93, if you could
see that laboratories were still unaccredited at that time it would be very clear
to you that the intent in the 91 policy had been completely achieved.
A Absolutely.
Q But when you move to a circumstance where there is no finite
period and the move to accreditation is dependent on a reasonable period of
time, it then requires a subjective decision on what is a reasonable period of
time in order to be able to determine whether the move towards accreditation
is proceeding slowly or quickly or somewhere in between, is that right?
A That‟s right.
Q In that sense, then, in wanting to assess whether or not the move
towards accreditation is happening in a manner with which you are happy, it
is much more difficult to do that without a finite timeframe, isn‟t it?
A I absolutely agree.
Q And it would also be more difficult to be critical of laboratories that
hadn‟t become accredited if you hadn‟t imposed a finite timeframe by which
they should be.
A Yes.”
5.93 The Ministerial Review Committee of November 1989 had advised the Minister of
Health that the success of a cervical screening programme turned on all aspects being
developed simultaneously as each was an integral part of achieving success.
Unfortunately the National Cervical Screening Programme was not planned in this
way. Compulsory quality control and laboratory accreditation was seen by everyone
from the Programme‟s outset as important and necessary. Yet it did not become an
integral part of the programme until some time after Dr Bottrill‟s retirement.
5.94 Section 12.2.2 of the Policy Statement Of The Government Policy For National
Cervical Screening Expert Group had recommended that all laboratories reading
cervical cytology be accredited with TELARC or an equivalent authority by 1993.
Section 12.2.3 had recommended that the Department of Health should be responsible
for confirming that laboratories reading cervical cytology were TELARC-accredited
and that without this confirmation a laboratory could not be paid. Had this entire
recommendation been placed in the Government National Cervical Screening Policy
1991 it would have ensured that all laboratories were accredited by 1993.
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5.95 Ms Grew, who was the National Co-ordinator during the time when the 1991 Policy
was being developed, told the Committee that she had received oral legal advice that it
was not possible to tag payment to laboratories in that way. However, the Department
promoted legislation in 1993 to allow for an opt-off register and the recording of
histology results. It seems to the Committee that if the Department believed that it did
not have the legal authority to require TELARC accreditation as a condition of
payment for laboratories and it considered that laboratories should be TELARC-
accredited it should have promoted legislation to achieve this end. Apart from
evidence that the Department was informed by its legal advisers that it had no power
to make TELARC accreditation compulsory the Committee has seen no evidence of
the Department taking any further steps to attempt to procure for the Minister or the
appropriate departmental officer the necessary authority to permit TELARC
accreditation to be made compulsory.
5.96 The Committee did not receive a satisfactory explanation for why nothing was done to
ensure that the design of the 1991 Policy mandated TELARC accreditation by a
specific date. The explanation the Committee received suggested that at the relevant
times the national co-ordinators were overly reliant on the advisory groups and did not
act to ensure that the design of the Policy and its implementation carried out the intent,
which it seems everyone had, for laboratories to be accredited. Certainly, in the
Committee‟s view, making TELARC accreditation a condition of payment would have
forced those laboratories that wanted to continue reading cervical cytology to become
accredited. These issues were raised with a panel of Ministry officials who gave
evidence at the final day of the public hearings :
“Q At the moment we‟re talking about 1990 and there is a report that
the expert group has prepared in 1990 saying that reading smear tests by
laboratories payment should be tagged to TELARC accreditation. Now we
haven‟t seen anything set out dealing with what the Ministry‟s response was
at the time. What we have seen is a screening policy statement of 1991 which
picks up some of what is in paras 12.2.2 to 12.2.4,but it certainly omits the
requirement that the laboratory benefit payment be tagged with a TELARC
accreditation requirement. Can you comment on that?
A - Ms Grew In the first six months of my job I have to say that dealing
with this particular aspect of the Policy was not attainable in the first six
months.
Q What about after?
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A – Ms Grew Even afterwards it was not possible. I did obtain oral
advice which I asked legal to put in writing in 1992, but it was consistent that
I had to change the law. I considered the other requests from the expert
group which were that it was extremely important to ensure that the Register
was not opt-on as it was; that I should change that, and also that it was vital
for histology to be linked with cytology register. Those were the two
priorities …
Q To come back … to this other point about TELARC accreditation, it
just goes beyond the period you were there, so anyone else can answer too.
Certainly legislation was amended in 1993 with s.74A and it could have been
possible, if primary legislation was needed, to amend legislation at that time
to enable a regulatory requirement for laboratories reading cytology to be
TELARC accredited to be put in place, couldn‟t it?
A – Ms Grew It could have. I wouldn‟t like to underestimate the huge
task involved in simply getting the consultation around the opt-off register
and also getting laboratories to agree to use the Bethesda coding system to
enable the same reporting and to also get the laboratories to agree to send the
opt-on women‟s cytology results to the registers around the country. That in
itself was a big task for the laboratories to adjust to, and I would suggest to
you that getting agreement to be TELARC accredited on top of all of that,
which I‟m sure you‟ve heard in evidence, is expensive, would have been a
huge ask for the laboratories and the consultation itself would have been
quite significant.
Q Are you saying that you were concerned that the laboratories would
refuse to do cytology work if a regulation had been passed requiring
TELARC accreditation?
A – Ms Grew No I‟m not saying that. I‟m saying that we required a great
deal of co-operation from the laboratories and they were very co-operative in
terms of all agreeing to use the Bethesda coding system, or agreeing to send
cytology smear results on disk to the registers. I also have to say that Clint
Teague consistently assured me that the laboratories were all moving towards
TELARC accreditation. I did raise it as a concern, and it‟s minuted further
down the track in the Cervical Screening Advisory Committee minutes.
Q But it‟s clear that as at 1993 when the screening Policy was redone
to accommodate the Ministry rather than the Department of Health, the
requirement in 4.1.2 of the Policy that TELARC accreditation be achieved by
1993 because the 1991 Policy said within two years had not occurred, and the
Ministry‟s response at that time was to leave the matter on the basis that
TELARC accreditation would be achieved within a reasonable period. Why
did the Ministry chose to do that when it wrote the 1993 Policy?
A – Ms Dahl I‟ll answer that question. The 1993 update of the 91 Policy
occurred in my time. I started in January and we started to update that soon
after. The reason for updating that was to reflect the health reforms, to
reflect the changes in the health structure. We did not review the Policy, we
updated the Policy. The removal of the two year clause, I can‟t exactly
remember how it occurred, but it was not to make it more lukewarm or to
reduce its impact. It was based on advice that laboratories were working
towards TELARC accreditation. Many of them were already there, and we
didn‟t need to put something in there that said two years, there were other
ways to make that occur. Meanwhile, we had also started to review with the
Cytology Advisory Liaison Committee the TELARC criteria for
accreditation, and there was no expectation at the time that that was going to
take as long as it took. There was an expectation that that would have been
finished within several months.
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Q At the time, TELARC was accrediting laboratories wasn‟t it?
A – Ms Dahl Yes it was.
Q It had its own standards which it used for the purposes of
accrediting medical laboratories, didn‟t it?
A It did. We did have some meetings with TELARC in the early parts
of 1993 to discuss what they were accrediting against, and the adequacy of
those criteria, and there was agreement with the CALC Committee that they
needed to be reviewed, that in the meanwhile there were criteria but they did
require review.
Q My understanding was that there are medical laboratories that are
accredited, and then you accredit different departments differently. You can
be accredited for one department and not another, and that when it came to
cytology, it was really there was a need to look at whether there ought to be
other criteria over and above what was already in existence. Is that right?
A – Ms Dahl That‟s correct.
Q And my understanding is that the Policy itself as a result of the
expert group‟s meeting had determined some criteria which it thought should
be in the TELARC accreditation, which would include standards set such as
how many minimum smears per year were read, employment of adequate
numbers of suitably qualified staff, maximum workload for each
cytoscreener, adequate in-service education, satisfactory participation in
internal / external quality assurance procedures and co-operation in providing
cytology reports to the cytology register. Now they were criteria that the
Department of Health under the 91 Policy and the Ministry of Health under
the 93 Policy saw as being important for the purposes of the Programme, and
those criteria could be imposed either through TELARC accreditation or
some other means really if the Ministry had wanted to ensure that the criteria
was in place. Isn‟t that right?
A I would have been unsure what other means there would have been.
My advice came from the CALC committee, I was not a technical expert on
laboratories, and my understanding from that Committee was that
laboratories were moving towards accreditation, everything was okay and
that they would work on reviewing the criteria for the TELARC accreditation
and that was the advice that I worked on in the period that I was there.
Q Another possibility would have been for the Ministry as part of the
Programme to have drawn up its own standards and to have said that those
laboratories that wanted to do cytology screening for the Programme must
adhere to those standards.
A – Ms Dahl That‟s correct ma‟am, and in many instances that type of
process occurs in various Government departments and it‟s a very
appropriate process. At the time that we‟re talking about that was not the
process that was working within the Department of Health, Ministry of
Health. We were very reliant on expert groups and they were the groups that
were advising us and we were following through on that process. Hindsight
may prove that may not have been the best way.
5.97 Had the Programme been able to ensure that all laboratories reading cytology were
accredited that would have stopped the cytology practices that were carried out at
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Gisborne Laboratories between 1990 to March 1996. The Committee has already said
that it considers that these practices are likely to have led to unacceptable under-
reporting. Had they been prevented then the under-reporting would have been
avoided. In the Committee‟s view a programme with a well-designed policy that was
well implemented would have had in place measures to ensure laboratories practised
quality control and were accredited. And the persons responsible for the Programme
would have applied these measures if a laboratory failed to comply. For this reason
the Committee considers that the poor design and implementation of the Programme‟s
policy in relation to laboratories is a factor that is likely to have led to the unacceptable
reporting in the Gisborne region.
Failure To Ensure The National Cervical Screening Register Functioned Optimally
5.98 During the time Dr Bottrill was in practice the National Cervical Screening Register
had two major flaws:
(i) When the National Cervical Screening Programme began instead of a
central register there were 14 stand-alone registers, each of which was
located in an area health board region. The 14 registers were unable to
correlate a patient‟s histology results with her cytology results. Nor
were the registers able to inter-link with each other in relation to a
patient‟s cytology results;
(ii) The registers were initially “opt-on” registers. This meant that women
had to request that their cytology results be recorded on the registers.
Many were either not given the choice or opted not to have their results
registered. The number of women whose results were recorded on the
registers was not sufficient to enable statistically meaningful
information to be derived from the registers.
The Committee will address each of these flaws below.
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No Centralised Register Capable Of Correlating Histology With Cytology
5.99 A centralised cytology register which linked histology with cytology results was
considered, by all the authorities on cervical screening to which the Committee was
referred, to be pivotal to a successful screening programme and an essential
management tool for proper quality control. The National Cervical Screening
Programme did not have such a register until 1997.
5.100 It appears that the original plan for the Programme‟s register was to have a nationally
computerised register which was to be managed locally by area health boards. This is
recorded in The Report of the Ministerial Review Committee of November 1989. This
design is consistent with the recommendation made in the Cartwright Report for a
centralised register based on a “regionalised” network. The Review Committee
reported its support for the view that a population-based programme required a
national computer based register. The Review Committee said that it was essential to
extend the cytology register to include histology information so as to enable cytology
and histology results for women to be correlated. The purpose of this recommendation
was to allow an assessment of the overall effectiveness of the Programme to be
conducted, and to provide a means of assessing the quality and uniformity of smear
reading across the country.
5.101 On 30 May 1990 the National Cervical Screening Programme Expert Group reported
to the Minister. The report recommended the establishment of three nationally based
and inter-linked registers. A national cytology register with the cervical smear test
results of individually identified women; a population register which would eventually
contain the names of all women in the population; and a histology register which
contained the results of biopsies to determine the rates of pre-cancerous abnormalities
and cervical cancer. The Expert Group said that each of the three registers was
integral to the Programme and that the failure of any one of them would jeopardise the
Programme. Subsequently in August 1990 the Expert Group produced the Policy
Statement Of The National Cervical Screening Programme Expert Group. In this
document the Expert Group said that:
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“ …the expansion of the cytology registers to include relevant histology was an
urgent priority, not only to ensure that women with abnormal smears are being
properly followed up but also to evaluate the quality of smear reading in
laboratories.” (emphasis added)
5.102 Judith Straton in her review of the Programme in 1990 emphasised the importance of a
register which linked cytology with histology results:
“ …the provision of histology to the Register is essential for the correlation
of cytology and histology reports, which provide an important measure of the
quality of the screening.”(emphasis added)
5.103 It appears from reading the Straton Report that Judith Straton was also aware of the
decision to locate a cervical screening register with each area health board. Like the
Ministerial Review Committee she too favoured having the registers in each area
health board linked to a central register. Also in 1990, the National Cervical Screening
Programme Expert Group recommended that the Programme be linked to the Cancer
Registry to provide correlation of smear reading results with proven cancer, even
though the histology specimen may have been reported by another laboratory at a later
date.
5.104 The Cancer Screening 1991 Cervical Screening Recommendations A Working Group
Report described a national register as: “the essential management tool to allow a
proper valuation of all the components of the screening process”. It also said that a
register should, “include relevant histology results to allow co-relation and evaluation
of cytology findings.”
5.105 The World Health Cervical Cancer Screening Programme Managerial Guidelines,
issued in 1992, recommended:
“…an efficient monitoring requires a system of linked records. A population
register (or available substitute) allows periodic call back for re-screening at
appropriate intervals. The cytology register when linked with a cancer
register (which should be ad hoc and specific to cervical cancer) permits
women with cytological abnormalities to be recalled for repeat screening
diagnosis and therapy. Evaluation of the programme can then be carried out
with regard to the assessment of :
 Management of women with positive smears;
 False negative smears;
 Cancers which are detected during the interval between consecutive
screens;
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 Groups missed in the target population.
5.106 The benefits of correlating histology with cytology results were confirmed for the
Committee by Dr Boyd. He told the Committee that correlation of histology and
cytology results can be considered as an external and internal quality assurance
activity. He said that as an external check on a laboratory‟s performance the Register
can provide statistics to show the proportion of women having colposcopy whose
histology results confirm the result of a previous smear reading; and those whose
histology results do not confirm previous smear readings. Either way the histology
results provide helpful information when it comes to assessing laboratory performance
in smear reading. If the histology results confirm the cytology results, that confirms
the laboratory‟s accuracy in reading smear tests. If the histology results do not
confirm the cytology results that would mean either the cytology results were false or
the biopsy did not sample the lesion detected by the cytology. It could also be due to
the misreading/misreporting of the histology. The proportion of false positives and
false negatives that a laboratory produces can indicate whether or not the laboratory‟s
performance is acceptable, and consequently whether or not unacceptable under-
reporting is occurring.
5.107 Dr Boyd described the Register‟s usefulness as an internal quality control to the
Committee in the following way:
“ … the correlating of cervical cytology reports generated within the
laboratory with the histology reports obtained following colposcopy and the
reports of cancer incidence from the cancer registry provides an opportunity
to re-examine the previous slides with a higher index of suspicion. The
laboratories develop their own protocols for this look-back. The look back
should not be restricted to the most recent slide. In one laboratory I visited
an arbitrary figure of five years has been selected, so that all previous slides
for that woman over that period are re-examined.”
Professor Skegg described the correlation of cytology results with histology results as
being of “fundamental importance” and he said it was “inexcusable that so many years
elapsed before it was done”.
5.108 During the early stages of the Programme‟s development, all the advice to the
Minister and the Department of Health from the various advisory groups, consultants
and the available overseas literature favoured a centralised register which linked
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histology with cytology results. The only variation in this advice was between the
view that there should be one national register or alternatively a series of regional
registers which inter-linked with a central computer. Nevertheless, when the National
Cervical Screening Programme began it was not designed around a centralised
register. Instead there were 14 stand-alone registers each associated with an area
health board. There was no linkage between these registers, and since the histology
results were not recorded, the registers did not allow histology results to be correlated
with cytology results. This arrangement caused problems and prevented the Register
from functioning optimally. One of these problems was that the usual capability of a
screening register as a tool for quality assurance was seriously compromised. The
Register could not be used as a source of information to show if there was
unacceptable under-reporting of smear test results.
5.109 The 14 stand-alone registers were installed in all 14 area health board regions between
December 1990 and September 1991, and they were all fully operational by early
1992. The Department of Health supplied each area health board with the same
software and hardware, however, the computer systems were not linked electronically.
This meant that all transfers of information between local sites were done by paper.
This state of affairs continued until the registers were finally reconfigured into a
central register, which was completed in 1997.
5.110 Ms Glackin told the Committee that not having a centralised system: “Did create a
problem and was very time consuming when women moved to a different region.”
She said that the fourteen separate registers led to difficulties with tracking women
who moved, and that this compromised the Register‟s recall functions. The Registers
could not verify personal data electronically between them. Women who may have
been enrolled in one region re-enrolled in another region. This led to duplication in
enrolments. Until the 14 stand-alone registers were combined, each register could
only give the smear histories of women who were enrolled in the region where that
register was located. Only since 1997 has data for the whole of New Zealand been
accessible from any regional co-ordination site. The software programme for the 14
registers did not allow histology to be linked with cytology. But, even if the software
had allowed it, because there was no centralised system which could track women
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when they moved to other area health board regions the histology results still could not
have been effectively linked with the cytology results.
5.111 The Committee learnt from Ms Sandra Matcham, who is the National Register Co-
ordinator for the Programme, that once the 14 registers got underway, there were
difficulties with some regional sites. She said that 11 of the smaller regional sites had
sufficient capacity for their processing requirements, but that the Wellington and
Canterbury sites began to show signs that their systems could not cope with the
volume of work and by 1994 the Auckland site had reached the point where
processing the information had become difficult for the staff, and they were
progressively getting behind with the work. This pressure helped to delay the progress
of the re-configuration of the registers. It is also another example of the difficulty
created by having 14 stand-alone registers.
5.112 The Committee heard from Ms Gillian Grew who was the first National Co-ordinator
of the National Cervical Screening Programme from June 1990 to July 1992, and from
Ms Susan Dahl, who was the National Co-ordinator from January 1993 to September
1994 about the difficulties the 14 registers caused them. Ms Grew told the Committee
that not having a single database was one of the difficulties the Department
encountered when it came to prepare the first statistical report for the Programme.
Ms Dahl, who was the co-ordinator at the time the second statistical report was
prepared said that it was :
“Very difficult to do the second statistical report and that related to the fact
that we did have 14 registers at the time.”.
5.113 She told the Committee that the Ministry had to create programmes to get the
information downloaded from the 14 sites and then compile the information in
Wellington. She said that once the Register was reconfigured the Ministry believed
that data would be more readily available, and therefore it would be easier to prepare
statistical reports. Since its inception the Programme has prepared only three general
statistical reports and one statistical report on for Maori women. The Committee also
learnt from Ms Grew that quite early on in the Programme area health boards began to
tinker with the registers‟ software programmes, and this had the effect of
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“confounding” the national statistics. Ms Grew‟s comments on the impact of the 14
standalone registers on the Programme were :
„In the first place I couldn‟t see why New Zealand needed 14 registers and it
became very apparent that that was highly undesirable given, you know, the
fact that women moved around the country. Although there were
arrangements for electronic transfer on disk it seemed incredibly inefficient
to do it that way, and I do think that having 14 different sites dealing with the
software there were high risks, and I know from the register people now that
they had to clean up the data considerably when they reconfigured into one
register.”
The Committee also learnt from Ms Grew that until the Register became an opt-off
Register which was capable of correlating histology results with cytology results she
was unable to quantitatively monitor the quality of laboratory performance. She said
that was why she worked to get “opt-off” registers which recorded and correlated
histology with cytology.
5.114 The first support the Committee was able to find in the evidence for regionally based
registers was in a report dated 21 November 1988 by Azimuth Systems Limited for the
Department of Health. The Committee understands that Azimuth Systems Limited
was a computer consulting company. The report was titled Proposal for a National
Co-ordinated New Zealand Cervical Screening Programme. The Azimuth report
referred to the planned establishment of area health boards and recorded that as a
result the Department of Health would no longer be directly involved in the delivery of
healthcare through its regional health development units. It then reviewed
implementation options for a screening programme. These were: a single national
system with remote access provided for each area health board or a separate system in
each area health board region with linkages through a national master patient index. It
described the national system as having all data and processing carried out using a
single facility with each area health board having remote terminals and printers. Data
was to be partitioned so that each area health board only had access to and control of
its own data. The advantages of this system were said to be: simplification of day to
day operations, provision of a uniform system throughout the country, simplification
of data transfers on women who move between areas, simplification of the interface to
a national patient index. The disadvantages of a single national system were said to be
a need for extensive co-ordination between area health boards, providers and “the
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national level”, separation of both physical and control aspects of the computer system
from the cervical screening programme users and the impact on strategic data
processing options and initiatives of individual boards since it would require them to
use equipment and facilities which may not be suitable to them. The Azimuth report
then described the second option of having separate systems for each area health
board. This option was said to require a means of accessing a national patient index to
maintain name and address information and to identify women who have not yet had
cervical smears. The report also noted that a regionally based system must allow for
information to be exchanged with other regional systems when women move between
areas. The advantages of this option were described as: having a minimal impact on
area health boards‟ autonomy in selecting hardware and software for local information
processing, providing area health board centres with autonomous control over the
operation of their service, allowing integration with other systems operated by area
health boards, being more responsive to local needs without impacting on the national
screening programme. The disadvantages were described as being: the need for a
national co-ordinating function to set the minimum requirements and the protocols for
information exchange and to monitor the national register. Secondly, full
implementation of the national programme was dependent on the slowest
implementation by an area health board. After having reviewed these two options the
report concluded by recommending a separate registration system for each area health
board. The reason for preferring this option was said to be the present policy intent to
decentralise health care management:
“ Given the present strategic direction of decentralising health care management
responsibility to area health boards then a separate system for each AHB [area health
board] Centre is proposed. Each AHB Centre will have access to a nationally
maintained patient index and an investigation of the existing National Master Patient
Index system should be undertaken to determine if it is suitable for this role.”
There is no reference in the Azimuth Report to any authoritative literature on
screening programmes that would support the establishment of 14 separate registers.
The recommendation appears to emanate from policy considerations arising from the
decentralisation of health services rather than to have been driven by sound principles
relating to the organisation of screening programmes.
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5.115 Another reason supporting regionally based registers appears in Judith Straton‟s
Report. She describes the presence of a widespread suspicion about the Register
among women and health professionals. She says that this suspicion was partly
related to the perception that the Register was primarily based in Wellington. She says
the suspicion may have lessened if the registers were promoted as regional area health
board registers with only non-identifying data going to Wellington. She also said that
the notion of the register for national audit had been over-emphasised and that the
register “needed to be brought down to the level of the individual woman with an
indication of what the benefits are to her.” She continued in this vein by stating that:
“ Giving women too many details about the workings of the Register, while
laudable, is quite likely to be counter-productive, as women may be
intimidated by it. This applies particularly to women who are most at risk,
who tend to be older and less well educated, and may have good reason to be
suspicious of government bureaucracy.”
The Committee considers that if reasons such as these influenced the Minister of
Health in the choice of stand-alone registers it is a matter of regret. There was good
reason for either a regionally based but inter-linked centralised register or for one
register to hold all the information. There is no good reason to support having 14
stand-alone registers which were incapable of sharing information. All such registers
could do was to record a woman‟s smear tests during the time she resided in a
register‟s locality and act as reminders to her when the time had come for another
smear. They could not reliably be used as a quality assurance tool to allow monitoring
and auditing of the programme, (and included within that is laboratory performance),
or as a source of epidemiological information to help reduce the incidence of cervical
cancer because there could never be any certainty that the information recorded on a
register about a woman gave a complete record of her cervical history. In the
Committee‟s view it would be a very short-sighted woman who did not appreciate the
benefits to herself of these wider measures. It is of concern to the Committee that in
1990 an assumed timidity and ignorance on the part of women could be given as a
reason not to inform them fully about the Programme.
5.116 A further reason for regional registers appeared in the evidence of Ms Sandra Coney.
She informed the Committee that in the beginning in some regional areas people were
concerned about information going outside their region and they felt they would have
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more control over it if it were recorded on a register based in their region. This is
similar to the view expressed in the Straton Report. However, it is not a view which
justifies running 14 stand-alone registers. The inefficiencies, which result from this
structure, clearly outweigh any concerns about misuse of information. These concerns
could have been accommodated in other ways. Furthermore it is difficult to see what
is to be gained in storing information regionally; that in itself does not guarantee the
protection of the information‟s confidentiality. The type of protections that do keep
information confidential can work just as well on a national basis as they can on a
regional basis.
5.117 Against these reasons are the sound epidemiological reasons for having a central
register which recorded the smear histories of women throughout the country and
which allowed cytology results to be correlated with histology results. The Ministerial
Review Report of 1989 emphasised the importance of ensuring that the links required
to build the regional system developed by Azimuth into a national system needed to
be put in place. The Expert Group‟s report to the Minister on 30 May 1990
emphasised the need for a national based cytology register. The Policy Statement Of
The National Cervical Screening Programme Expert Group dated August 1990
recommended a regional system of cytology registers which were linked to a central
register.
5.118 Ms Glackin told the Committee that a decision was made early in the development of
the Programme that there would be 14 stand-alone register sites. Even though the
Azimuth Report had supported having separate regional registers it is difficult to see
why this advice was followed. The limitations of 14 stand-alone registers should have
been obvious from the outset. The Straton Report had at least favoured registers in
each area health board region which were linked to a central register.
5.119 Ms Matcham told the Committee that it would have been technically possible to have
net-worked the regional computer data bases to a central site between 1990 and 1991,
as a register was set up in each area health board‟s region, but at significant cost. She
said that a much larger central computer would have been necessary and that
telecommunication lines 10 years ago were more expensive than they are today.
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5.120 No-one from the Ministry gave the Committee an explanation as to why, from the
outset, a single computer located in one site could not have been used to hold the
cytology results for all women whose results were being recorded. The relevant
female population for screening in New Zealand is not large. It could easily all have
been accommodated on one centralised register. The expense Ms Matcham spoke of
was for the type of system now in place where the 14 regional computer sites are
networked to a central site. While this may have been expensive in the early nineteen
nineties it does not follow that at the outset a single computer based in one locality
would have been more expensive than the system of 14 separate computers which was
adopted. If a centralised system of regionally inter-linked computers was too
expensive, a single computer with systems in place to ensure that laboratories
throughout the country forwarded their results to the computer could have worked.
Although a larger computer would have been needed, it would be surprising if the cost
of one computer to hold all the information would have been more costly than a
centralised system of regionally inter-linked computers. It may also have been less
costly, once all the duplication and consequential inefficiencies were taken into
account, than the 14 stand-alone computers of a smaller size. The Committee has
learnt that the laboratories forward information on floppy disk to the regional co-
ordination site. The information is then read into the database and validated. Rather
than laboratories sending information by floppy disk to regional co-ordination sites, it
is difficult to see why from the outset they could not have sent the information to a
single computer. For those laboratories unable to send the information electronically,
they could have sent it in paper form.
5.121 With the change to a decentralised health system which used area health boards to
deliver health services, the Minister may have considered that a centralised system of
inter-linked regional registers was too expensive at that time and that a single
nationally-based register, for which the Department was responsible, was at variance
with the move towards a more regionally based health system. While the concern for
expense and the desire to adhere consistently to an adopted philosophy for health
delivery is understandable, it should not have been allowed to affect detrimentally the
design and implementation of the National Cervical Screening Programme. The
design of the Register was fundamental to the success of the Programme. Professor
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Skegg had written of this in his article in the New Zealand Medical Journal of October
1989 titled How Not To Organise A Screening Programme. He wrote:
“Schemes based on inadequate registers are doomed to fail.”
Although Professor Skegg was writing primarily about the decision to have opt-on
registers, it is clear to the Committee that he did not support regionally based separate
registers as he referred with approval to the notion of a comprehensive population
based register. The Committee considers that Professor Skegg‟s comment on the
impact of inadequate registers on screening programmes can be read as being of
general application to any material inadequacy. When his comments are read with the
comments from the Ministerial Review Committee and the Expert Group supporting a
national cytology register this should have signalled a warning against having 14
stand-alone registers.
5.122 There was sufficient authoritative material at that time about the importance of a well-
designed register. None of the authoritative material the Committee has seen
recommends having a discrete series of registers that cannot communicate with each
other. Nor was the Ministry able to point the Committee to any material that would
support the idea of having fourteen stand-alone registers in a country the size of
New Zealand. Whatever may have prompted the setting up of 14 stand-alone
registers, there is nothing in any material that the Committee has seen to suggest that it
was a sound way to set up a cervical screening programme‟s register. If the decision
to have 14 stand-alone registers was influenced by a concern to ensure that the register
fitted in with the new decentralised heath structure it is most unfortunate. The
effectiveness of the register should not have been compromised by considerations of
that kind.
5.123 By February 1993 the Minister and the Ministry of Health had accepted that the 14
standalone registers needed to be inter-linked nationally. In February 1993 the
Associate Minister approved the release of a discussion paper dealing with future
reconfiguration of the Registers. By April 1993 consultation over the options for
reconfiguration was completed with the majority support being for a national register
with remote access. Final approval for the reconfiguration was given on 12 January
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1994. Final approval to start tenders to allow the reconfiguration to be implemented
was given in late 1995. The reconfiguration started in May 1996 and was completed
in February 1997. Since 1997 there has been one centralised stand-alone database
with regional access from 14 sites.
5.124 Although the need to link histology with cytology was recognised relatively early on
in the Programme‟s implementation this was not achieved until late 1996. Without a
national register, which linked histology with cytology, it was impossible to gain
sufficient information to evaluate laboratory performance. The benefit of correlating
histology and cytology results can be seen from what happens now. At present a
laboratory can request from the Register reports which give details of the histology
reports for all women for whom the laboratory in question has read cytology results in
the previous five years. Where there has been a negative smear reported within five
years prior to a high-grade histology result, that information is highlighted
automatically by the Register when generating the report. Thus the type of
information which can immediately bring to a laboratory‟s attention a suspect cervical
history is readily accessible. This allows a laboratory to check whether or not earlier
negative smear results are correct or result from under-reporting. This type of “look
back” investigation using the Register has two benefits : it can assist laboratories to
discover errors in their reporting; and it can be used by Programme staff to detect
laboratory errors. It has only been available since February 1998.
5.125 If, from the outset, the Register had been configured as a single national register with
correlated histology results with cytology results, an effective tool to monitor
laboratory performance would have been available to pick up Dr Bottrill‟s under-
reporting. Once one of his patient‟s had a biopsy with positive results the computer
could have generated a report showing the patient‟s cervical smear history. Certainly
before any use could be made of this information someone would have to request it.
However, if Dr Bottrill had known this information was readily available he may have
done so. Equally, the Programme could have employed someone to request routinely
the smear histories for women with positive histology with a view to checking the
results of their earlier smear tests as part of a regular monitoring exercise.
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5.126 The Committee has already concluded that the failure at Gisborne Laboratories to have
an organised programme which correlated a patient‟s cytology results with her
histology results and which looked back on her previous smear history was a factor in
the unacceptable under-reporting at that laboratory. The Committee considered that
had Gisborne Laboratories carried out this procedure it may have alerted Dr Bottrill to
his very low false positive rate and so caused him to realise that he was being overly
critical and “ setting the bar too high” when reading smear tests. This in turn should
have alerted him to the probability that he was under-reporting too many smear tests.
5.127 A centralised screening register, which was designed to correlate a patient‟s cytology
results with her histology results, would have been an effective substitute for, if not an
improvement on, a laboratory organised programme to correlate cytology with
histology. If the National Cervical Screening Register had been in this form during
the time Dr Bottrill was in practice it would have been a source of information to alert
him to signs that he was under-reporting smear tests. For this reason the Committee
considers that the inability of the Register to provide Gisborne Laboratories with
access to this information during the time that Dr Bottrill was in practice is a factor
that is likely to have led to unacceptable under-reporting.
“Opt-on” Registers
5.128 When the Programme began it was based on an opt-on register. Women had to
actively exercise a choice to go onto the Register. The result was that enrolment was
not as high as the Department would have liked, and the Register was insufficient to
be able to derive any statistically meaningful information. Studies in New Zealand and
overseas showed that an opt-on register was likely to recruit only 30-40% of women
having a smear, and that with such low enrolments there was risk that there would be
too few women enrolled on the Register for the Programme to meet its objectives of
increasing coverage and reducing mortality and the incidence of cervical cancer.
5.129 In October 1989 Professor Skegg published an article in the New Zealand Medical
Journal titled How Not To Organise A Screening Programme. In this article Professor
Skegg was very critical of the use of opt-on registers. He wrote:
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“There is abundant evidence from other countries that it is possible to spend vast sums on
cervical screening without achieving much. We cannot afford to repeat their mistakes.
Despite the lack of details one aspect of the New Zealand scheme sounds particularly ominous.
Considerable emphasis is being placed on computer- based registers which will be restricted to
women who have indicated that they wish to be part of the programme. Apparently no
information will be put on these registers without the signing of written consent forms on every
occasion.
The full potential of cervical screening can only be realised with effective systems to invite all
women for screening, and to check that appropriate action has been taken on positive results.
Computer-based schemes appear to offer the best opportunities and the main characteristics of
successful programmes are that they consumer oriented but service initiated Schemes based
on inadequate registers are doomed to fail.”
5.130 In May 1990 the National Cervical Screening Programme Expert Group recorded in its
report to the Minister its support of Professor Skegg‟s article. It went on to
recommend that the Programme should be designed to allow automatic participation in
the Programme with the ability to opt out, and that legislation to enable this to occur
should be passed. The opt-off option was supported because it was considered it
would encourage greater participation in the Programme, provide greater choice,
provide greater ability to assure quality, result in less data fragmentation, and allow
the identification of targeting requirements to provide a better basis for policy
development. It is difficult to see why the initial opt-on registers ever found favour.
5.131 In November 1991 the Associate-Minister of Health endorsed a requirement for
legislation to bring about an opt-off register for the Programme. This required an
amendment to the Health Act 1956; the amendment was passed in 1993. Once the
Register became an “opt-off” register there was a dramatic increase in enrolments, and
therefore data. Overnight, 80-99% of all smear results from various laboratories were
being forwarded to the Register (as opposed to 20-40% prior to the introduction of the
legislation). Enrolments rose to 55% of eligible women in 1994, 69% in 1995 and
81% by 1996. The Committee was told that by the end of the calendar year in 1999,
enrolments on the Register had risen to 91% with 84.6% having had a smear in the
previous 5 years. This exceeded the projected target set in the 1996 Policy and
compared well with cervical screening programmes internationally. However, the use
of an “opt-off” register only became possible by 1993 and then it was caught up with
the need to reconfigure the register into a national register. The impact of this was that
it was not until after Dr Bottrill retired that the Programme was able to generate
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information from the register that gave any reliable indication of a laboratory‟s
diagnostic performance.
5.132 The Programme began with a register system that was sub-optimal. The system did
not become fully effective until 1997 when it was reconfigured into a national
centralised register. Although it was recognised early in the Programme that the
system of 14 stand-alone registers was not operating effectively, and that this in turn
was having a detrimental impact on other facets of the Programme, it took until 1997
to reconfigure the registration system into an optimal form. The system‟s two major
flaws were features which were contrary to all the expert advice that was available
during the time the Programme was being set up. The Committee considers that the
detrimental impact the sub-optimal registration system had on the Programme is
perhaps best explained in this interchange between the Committee and Ms Grew.
“Q When you look back now it seems that all the work, however well
intentioned it was from the outset up until 1993, has turned out to be
misplaced in the sense that all the work that went into setting up 14 different
registers, being opt-on registers, then had to be redone with the national
Register in circumstances where it was opt-off, which was one of the early
recommendations coming through from the expert group.
A All I can say … is that there were some givens. My job was to set
up the Programme within the constraints already in place and that is that
there were 14 registers. I did get policy approval to look at rationalising
those down to one, so it was clear even in the very early days that we were
asked to set up something that was not ideal at the end of the day, and my
first job really was to set up something and then obtain approval to change it
so that it was more effective.” (emphasis added)
With a sub-optimal registration system the Programme was never going to operate
effectively; in particular the registration system could not be used to monitor the
performance of laboratories and so it could not be used to detect under-reporting.
Professor Skegg told the Committee that he found it “ extraordinary [that] we have
spent millions of dollars each year establishing and maintaining these registers [the
National Cervical Screening Register and the Cancer Register] but we are not using
them in they way they could be used to advance the health of women.” In the
Committee‟s view the sub-optimal character of the National Cervical Screening
Register and the impact it had on the effectiveness of the Programme is a factor that is
likely to have led to the unacceptable under-reporting that occurred in Gisborne.
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Failure To Put In Place Laboratory Performance Standards And To Make Reliable
Data Available
5.133 Throughout the time that Dr Bottrill was in practice at Gisborne Laboratories the
National Cervical Screening Programme had no laboratory performance standards in
place and it had no reliable data. Therefore, it was not possible to monitor and
evaluate laboratories‟ performance. Without doing this it was not possible for those
responsible for the Programme to detect incidences of unacceptable under-reporting.
No Laboratory Performance Standards
5.134 There was no dispute from any of the witnesses heard by the Committee that
performance is more easily measurable if standards are in place. By performance
“standards” the Committee means quantitative benchmarks which a laboratory must
achieve as opposed to something which a laboratory should aspire to achieving.
Performance standards are a measure against which those monitoring performance
assess whether or not a laboratory is performing according to expectations.
Performance standards specify the expectations of a health service. Without
performance standards it is not possible to monitor adequately, if at all. The
importance of this has always been well recognised. From the evidence the
Committee heard there appeared to be no dispute that monitoring, if it is to be done
properly, requires the imposition of performance standards. Professor McGoogan
told the Committee that it was very difficult to evaluate data without pre-set standards.
In addition, it was difficult to measure quality of performance without pre-set
standards. In Professor McGoogan‟s opinion, the absence of standards did not reflect
well on the New Zealand Programme:
“Q Could you offer an opinion on the New Zealand approach to
creating the national average and how that would impact on one‟s evaluation
of laboratory practise relative to the national average?
A I‟ve said before in evidence that the measurement of quality is the
degree to which one conforms to pre-set standards. The three statistical
reports provide interesting data about what is happening to women in
New Zealand who are registered with the screening Programme, but it is very
difficult to evaluate this data without a standard against which to compare it.
It seems to me these standards have never been set.
Q Well it appears that a standard may have been set for laboratory
reporting by pooling the results of all laboratories and creating an average.
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A The principle is an average if New Zealand wishes to set its standard
as the average of all the laboratories. It number one should say so and
number two it should justify it. When one makes an average you take a wide
range of laboratories whose practice may differ enormously, and averages
notoriously hide excellent practice and very poor practice within them. That
was the specific thing we wished to avoid in the UK in setting the standard
in 95.
Q What does it tell you about the New Zealand Programme if there
were no standards set?
A Unfortunately it does not reflect well on the New Zealand
Programme. There seems to be a belief that simply doing the work is good
enough, not necessarily doing it to a high standard or at least an acceptable
standard … Again I‟m very impressed with the effectiveness of the
New Zealand Cervical Screening Programme. You have reduced the
incidence of cervical cancer in both your Maori population and in the rest of
your population, so your screening Programme is effective, but without
quality standards in place you cannot evaluate how much more effective it
might have been.
5.135 In New Zealand the importance of having performance standards for laboratories
reading cervical cytology was recognised as early as 1989. Section 8.13 of the Report
Of The Ministerial Review Committee On Implementation Of A Government Policy for
National Cervical Screening, which was published in November 1989, recommended
the development of a set of minimum standards of competency for laboratories and
smear readers. An example of overseas authority supporting the need for performance
standards is the European Guidelines for Quality Assurance In Cervical Cancer
Screening published in 1993:
“A pre-condition of quality assurance is the establishment of standards. The
aim of the quality assurance programme is to ensure that these standards
are met.”
5.136 A departure from the view that performance standards are essential for a programme
can be seen from the minutes of the Cervical Screening Liaison Advisory Committee
on 26 July 1995. At the meeting there was discussion about analysis of laboratory
statistics which were contained in a draft report of the Programme‟s performance (the
Second Statistical Report). Copies of laboratory statistics had been taken from the
draft report and circulated to the members of this committee. Those who were present
at the meeting on 26 July 1995 are recorded in the minutes as agreeing to each
laboratory being supplied with its individual statistics for comparison with national
ranges and averages produced in the draft Second Statistical Report. This committee
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thought it was too early to set performance standards as it considered that appropriate
statistical ranges were yet to be established The minutes recorded that:
“One of the problems with assessing laboratory performance is that the
appropriate statistical ranges for cytology screening have not yet been
established. Cytology is a very subjective science and it is difficult to set
numerical standards. There is a danger that any standard set would be so
wide that they are hardly worth setting.‟
5.137 However, the Committee considers that this was insufficient reason to delay the
setting of performance standards as these are not dependent on knowing the statistical
range of laboratory reporting. The use of national averages to measure individual
laboratory performance was criticised by Professor McGoogan. She pointed out to the
Committee that the difficulty with taking a national average is that over a wide range
of laboratories practice may differ enormously, and averages can hide excellent
practice and poor practice within them. She said that was the very reason why in the
United Kingdom they chose to set a performance standard instead. The Committee
can see the wisdom of the United Kingdom approach. It seems, however, that the
Cervical Screening Liaison Advisory Committee was not as alert as Professor
McGoogan was to the masking effect of using a national average to provide a measure
of comparison for a particular laboratory.
5.138 The Committee has heard other evidence about the importance of performance
standards. The Committee rejects the view expressed by the Cervical Screening
Liaison Advisory Committee. It considers that as at 1995 there was sufficient
authoritative material from overseas to provide a guideline for setting appropriate
numerical standards. It was unnecessary for any numerical standards that were set to
reflect the performance of New Zealand laboratories; that approach belies the whole
basis of having performance standards. Appropriate standards should be set according
to objective measures of good performance and laboratories should be required to
meet those standards. It is not a matter of discovering how laboratories are performing
and then tailoring standards to reflect the average performance. Furthermore, to use
the national average rate for reporting abnormalities as a standard is dependent on the
assumption that the national average rate is in itself an appropriate benchmark. For
example, if all New Zealand laboratories had been under-reporting to a greater or
lesser degree, then the national average would in itself be a poor performance standard
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and to attain it would be falsely reassuring. New Zealand laboratories should have
been required to ensure that their performance met numerical standards similar to
those in place for cervical screening in overseas programmes. There is no reason why
a New Zealand cervical screening programme should adopt lower performance
standards for laboratories than programmes in other countries. New Zealand could
have done the same as the United Kingdom. In addition, the view of the Cervical
Screening Advisory Committee overlooks the importance of pre-set standards for
monitoring and evaluation. If the Advisory Committee thought the subjective
character of cytology made it too difficult to set numerical standards, it is hard to
imagine how the Committee contemplated the Programme could be monitored and
evaluated. The Advisory Committee‟s comments demonstrate to the Committee how
unaware the Advisory Committee must have been to what thorough monitoring and
evaluation of the Programme entailed. It is clear to the Committee that Professor
McGoogan saw no value in the New Zealand approach:
“Q You had the opportunity to look at the three statistical reports
produced by the New Zealand Programme, and I am sure you have noted the
laboratory reporting rates in the table. From those tables you can see that the
New Zealand average for reporting rates of various pap smear abnormalities
have been determined by including all laboratories that are reporting and then
determining the average and the minimum and the maximum.
A Yes.
Q Now this contrasts with the approach that the UK took, which was
to take the practice of 12 quality laboratories and to use their results to
establish their benchmark. Is that correct?
A That is correct.
Q Could you offer an opinion on the New Zealand approach to
creating the national average and how that would impact one‟s evaluation of
laboratory practise relative to the national average?
A I‟ve said before in evidence that the measurement of quality is the
degree to which one conforms to pre-set standards etc.”
5.139 Throughout the time that Dr Bottrill was in practice no laboratory performance
standards were in force. This was recognised by the Health Funding Authority when,
as a result of the under-reporting at Gisborne, it came to review the performance of
other laboratories. It identified certain factors relating to the Programme including:
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“The lack of specific standards or targets for cervical cytology in New
Zealand during the period covered by … [the] review.[1990-99];
5.140 The Government Policy for National Cervical Screening 1991 provided that
performance indicators for area health boards were to be developed by the Department
of Health and negotiated with area health boards. The 1993 updated Policy provided
that performance indicators for regional health authorities would be developed by the
Ministry of Health and Public Health Commission and negotiated with regional health
authorities. In the course of the Inquiry the Committee‟s attention was never drawn to
the performance indicators for area health boards. The Committee considers that it
can be safely assumed that if such indicators had covered laboratory performance then
they would have been brought to the Committee‟s attention. As regards performance
indicators for regional health authorities, these were specified in the funding
agreements and related purely to waiting times for colposcopy examinations,
enrolment of women and improving access to screening and treatment services. No
performance indicators were ever developed in relation to laboratory reading of
cervical cytology. It is clear to the Committee that the provision in both Policies for
the development of performance indicators, which the Committee assumes to be a
diluted version of quantitative performance standards, was recognition that some
measure of performance was necessary to enable the Programme to be monitored and
evaluated. It is unfortunate that nothing was done to develop performance indicators
for measuring laboratory performance.
5.141 Ms Glackin told the Committee that she considered it was not true to say there were no
standards for the Programme. She accepted that there were no quantitative
performance standards. However, she said this did not mean there were no standards
in place. She pointed to the National Cervical Screening Programme Policy of 1996,
which she said had expectations in a large number of areas associated with the
Programme. Inevitably it seems to the Committee that responses from witnesses may
turn on semantics. To the Committee an expectation is not a standard. A standard is
something which must be adhered to and which is capable of being enforced. When it
came to laboratory performance there was nothing of this nature in place throughout
the time Dr Bottrill was in practice, and even after that time. It is only since the
Health Funding Authority commenced working on setting performance standards that
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standards, which are capable of measuring performance and being enforced, have been
formulated. The 1996 Policy, which came into effect after Dr Bottrill had retired did
not contain compulsory standards capable of measuring laboratory performance.
5.142 The Committee considers that the failure from 1990 to 1996 to impose performance
standards on laboratories reading cervical cytology is a factor that is likely to have led
to the unacceptable under-reporting in the Gisborne region. Without performance
standards the laboratories could not be adequately monitored, and, therefore it was
impossible to be sure that they were reading cervical smear tests adequately.
Furthermore, a requirement to meet set performance standards would have been a
signal to Gisborne Laboratories that laboratory performance could be measured
against those standards. Performance standards coupled with sanctions for failure to
meet the standards would have caused Gisborne Laboratories either to improve its
practices or to cease reading cervical cytology.
No Reliable Data
5.143 For the effective operation of a screening programme it is essential to have timely and
reliable data available. This enables an analysis of the Programme‟s performance to
be undertaken. Within this context the availability of reliable data on laboratory
performance in reporting cervical smear tests enables those who are responsible for the
Programme to detect if any misreporting is occurring. If the data is made available to
laboratories it enables them to analyse the quality of their performance and to discover
errors. The importance of statistical data for monitoring and evaluating a cervical
screening programme was recognised in World Health Organisation Bulletin of 1986
titled Control of Cancer of the Cervix Uteri; the World Health Organisation‟s Cervical
Cancer Screening Programmes Managerial Guidelines of 1992 and the European
Guidelines for Quality Assurance In Cervical Cancer Screening. The last publication
sets out 18 different tables for tabulating data required for monitoring a cervical
screening programme.
5.144 Throughout the time that Dr Bottrill was in practice, no reliable data on laboratory
performance was available. This meant that Dr Bottrill never received any
information from the Programme that could have alerted him to the possibility that he
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was under-reporting an unacceptable number of cervical smear tests. Dr Bottrill told
the Committee that he thought he was detecting a reasonable number of high-grade
abnormalities each year.
“ Q: … you didn‟t know how your results compared with anybody else did you?
A: No
Q: In 1995?
A: I didn‟t. However, I was seeing about 30 high-grade lesions a year and without knowing
any statistics it seemed a reasonable sort of number for the population we were dealing with. I
can‟t go any further than that because the figures just weren‟t available.
The lack of statistical data also meant that those responsible for the Programme were
unable to detect if any of the laboratories reading cervical cytology were misreporting
the results.
5.145 The National Cervical Screening Programme was unable to produce reliable data for
the period before 1993 because no meaningful data could be derived from the “opt-on”
registers then in use, due to the number of registrations not providing a sufficient
sample of the population. Secondly, until the 14 stand-alone registers were
reconfigured into a centralised register the data was not reliable due to the
confounding effect of women being recorded on more than one register. Ms Grew
told the Committee that when she was national co-ordinator she could recall some
early statistical information on laboratory performance. However this information had
not been published and she agreed that it was because the data was not considered to
be sufficiently robust. When the Committee asked for a view from the past national
co-ordinators about whether or not there had been minimal monitoring and feedback
provided by the Programme Ms Grew‟s response was:
Ms Grew “I‟m just struggling to remember that data that I referred you to
earlier, that laboratory data – I do recall there was concern obviously because
then numbers were so small and it was decided definitely not to publish them
but I may be wrong, but I understand each laboratory was going to get its
own but I don‟t know what – I can‟t imagine what value it could have been,
given there was not the ability to sort of compile a national average or
anything like that that was reliable.”
5.146 It was not until 7 August 1996, by which time Dr Bottrill had retired from practice,
that statistical information about laboratory performance in the form of the 1996
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National Cervical Screening Programme Statistics first became available. The
forward to these statistics recorded that it had always been the intent of the Programme
to provide laboratories with information, but that until recently the Programme had
insufficient data to allow meaningful analysis for most laboratories. These statistics
were intended to provide an analysis of all cervical smear tests stored on the Registers
to the period June 1994. The evidence the Committee heard was that information
began to be recorded in 1990, therefore, it can be assumed that the 1996 statistics
cover the period 1990 to 1994.
5.147 The period from 1990 to 1994 was a time when Dr Bottrill was practising at Gisborne
Laboratories. Therefore, the statistics are relevant in that they provide a reflection of
Dr Bottrill‟s performance in comparison with other laboratories. The forward to the
statistics stated that:
“The intent of the report is to provide information to be used in the your [sic]
laboratory‟s quality assurance processes. One of the NCSP‟s major
principles has been the implementation and emphasis on quality assurance
with the aim to reduce the number of false negative results.” (emphasis
added)
5.148 Interestingly, the statistics place Gisborne Laboratories‟ reporting rates within the
acceptable range. They recorded that 86% of the smears read at Gisborne Laboratories
were reported as being within normal limits. The average rate for community
laboratories making these reports was 80.9% and the range was 68.7-94.7%. Gisborne
Laboratories was recorded as having reported 0.6% of abnormalities with high-grade
codes. The average rate was 0.8% and the range was 0.4%-2.0%. Thus, if Dr Bottrill
had received these statistics while he was in practice, they would have shown him that
there was nothing exceptional or unacceptable about his reporting rate. They would
have given him no cause for concern about the accuracy of his reporting. Indeed they
are likely to have reassured him that his performance was competent.
5.149 However, in the course of the Inquiry the Committee has been told by a number of
witnesses that the 1996 National Cervical Screening Programme Statistics were
unreliable. Mr Du Rose of the Health Funding Authority accepted that they were
unreliable and said he would not put a lot of weight upon them. He accepted that, in a
national monitoring exercise, they would not have been a helpful indicator. He also
129
agreed that they could be falsely reassuring. For example, Dr Bottrill‟s false negative
rate was within the acceptable range and it was not the lowest rate recorded. Mr Du
Rose also accepted that the statistics may well have been falsely reassuring to
members of the Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia when issues were raised
about whether or not there should have been a review of cervical cytology from the
Gisborne region.
“Q Given that it is accepted that there will always be false negatives in
cytology, reading a statistical report which shows that generally the readings
from the laboratory within a certain period of time have been within the
range, again could be falsely reassuring, it could make you think if there was
a problem with a couple of slides, its just a false negative problem, as
opposed to a bigger problem, do you agree?
A Yes, its possible, yes. I think it also points to the lack of not having
something where you are actually measuring against.”
“Q From the perspective of a pathologist working a laboratory
presumably not thinking a lot about statistical information all the time,
having a document like that (the statistics) come in through the mail to him,
looking at it seeing that his reporting rate is within a similar range to other
laboratories, I suggest that it‟s likely to reassure him that his practices are
okay, rather than to signal to him there could be a problem.
A Yes I agree.”
5.150 Professor Skegg was also critical of the 1996 National Cervical Screening Programme
Statistics. He was concerned that the statistics took no account of the underlying
prevalence of cervical cancer; they did not record whether or not the cytology
diagnoses were accurate; as at June 1994 fewer than 50% of women eligible for
screening were recorded on the Register/s. He said that the opt-on character of the
Registers may have confounded the data, as in his view, the type of women who opt-
on to a register have been found to be at a lower risk of cervical cancer than those who
do not choose to go onto a register. He also said that the data were based on the
number of smear tests which were reported in different ways and not on numbers of
women. This meant that no account was taken of the presence of more than one smear
test for the same woman. Variations in medical practice could mean that in a
particular circumstance some clinicians would take more than one smear and others
would not. If two smears were taken from the same woman within a short timeframe,
and they were both reported as abnormal, this would influence the overall proportion
of smears reported as high-grade. Professor Skegg was very critical of statistical
analyses based on the numbers of smears rather than numbers of women:
130
“ I think analyses based on the numbers of smears rather than numbers of
women are fraught with problems.”
5.151 Professor McGoogan also found the 1996 National Cervical Screening Programme
Statistics unhelpful. She considered that no conclusions could be drawn from them:
“Q What are your concerns about this document?
A Well it‟s not clear whether this is cumulative year on year data or
whether it refers to a shorter period of time. In an opt-on register situation
the early years are likely to have fewer smears than later years. Laboratories
reporting fewer than 1,000 smears are excluded. If a laboratory reported
1,000 in the last six months it would be excluded from the starter. I note it
doesn‟t tell me whether – this is a smear collection statistic, it doesn‟t tell me
anything about women – about whether you have had one smear per woman
or ten smears/women in this period of time. If there had been repeated
smears from normal women at six monthly intervals for example, it could
sway the results. The corollary is if we were reporting smears from the
women with high-grade abnormality as she passed through different
caregivers, but the smears were sent to the same laboratory, that would also
skew the results. Unless the statistics are collected in such a way to avoid
these biases then it is difficult to make any comparisons between laboratories
simply by looking at smear numbers. I am also concerned that the
community laboratory range starts at naught (zero) for various things – I‟m
not sure how meaningful therefore the range is as a means of comparison of
the laboratory in question.”
Q You are saying then that without some standardisations and
explanations of the data collected and who the population is, it is not very
beneficial.
A I don‟t think you can draw any conclusions from it. In the UK for
example there are some colposcopy services who prefer to take a repeat
cervical smear the first time they see a woman in the clinic. Laboratories are
required to remove those from their reporting profiles so they are not
duplicating two abnormal smears from one woman in their reporting profiles
before they submit their statistics, so that they don‟t build in a bias, so its
very important when collecting the statistics that you collect the same thing
from each laboratory or at least you know when you are not.”
5.152 It was the lack of statistical information which had a negative impact on the
performance of Gisborne Laboratories and that is a factor that is likely to have led to
under-reporting. The 1996 statistics had no impact on the practice at Gisborne
Laboratories as they did not become available until after Dr Bottrill had retired. They
did, however, have a negative impact when it came to deciding if a review of all of the
smears read at Gisborne Laboratories was necessary. Their impact on the Royal
College of Pathologists of Australasia is most concerning. When the Health Funding
Authority sought the views of the College on a review of the cervical smear tests from
131
the Gisborne region the College‟s response was influenced by the 1996 statistics. It
used these statistics to compare the rates at which different laboratories around the
country had reported abnormalities. Because Gisborne Laboratories‟ rate was not
significantly different from the national average, and because Gisborne Laboratories
did not have the lowest reporting rate, the College went so far as to say:
“Dr Bottrill exceeded the performance of almost one fifth of Australian
laboratories judged by today‟s standards.”
At the time the College was unaware of the deficiencies in these statistics. It was only
in the course of the inquiry when a number of expert witnesses were asked to look
closely at these statistics and to comment on their usefulness that their unreliability
was recognised. However, the detrimental influence the statistics had on the judgment
of the College when it came to advise on the need for a review shows how dangerous
and damaging unreliable statistics can be. If the Health Funding Authority had
decided to follow the College‟s advice there would have been no review of the smear
tests by Douglass Hanly Moir Pathology and the unacceptable level of the under-
reporting at Gisborne Laboratories may not have been revealed.
5.153 Apart from the 1996 National Cervical Screening Programme statistics which were
sent to each laboratory, there were a total of four official statistical reports for the
Programme which the Ministry published. Three of these were general reports and the
fourth was a Maori statistical report. The first statistical report was dated 18 August
1992 and it was released in August 1993. The second statistical report was an analysis
of data to 30 June 1994 and it was released in October 1995. The third statistical
report was an analysis of data to 31 December 1995 and it was released in 1998. The
Committee was interested to hear how helpful these statistical reports would be to a
pathologist wanting statistical data to determine whether or not his or her laboratory
was providing a quality service in terms of smear reading. The Committee was told by
Professor McGoogan that she would not have found any of the three statistical reports
helpful.
“Q First, can you tell me as a pathologist, are those reports – would
those reports be helpful to you in deciding whether or not you were happy
with the performance of smear reading in your laboratory?
132
A It wouldn‟t help me at all.”
5.154 Professor McGoogan was then questioned about the timeliness of the data. Professor
McGoogan informed the Committee that it was important for a pathologist to receive
statistical information which was close enough to the period of time for which the
analysis was made to allow the pathologist to make adjustments to his or her
performance. She considered that an annual supply of statistical analysis of a
laboratory‟s performance was appropriate. Her reaction to the timeliness of the three
statistical reports differed. In her view the first statistical report was understandably
the best that could be delivered at that particular time, given the nature of the opt-on
register, and also it was delivered a year after the period for which the analysis was
made which was not unreasonable. The second report was delivered in October 1995,
which was two years later, but it dealt with data to June 1994, therefore there was a
15-month delay in delivering the information. Professor McGoogan described this as
“not too bad but drifting out from what is being helpful if one thinks that a practice
needs to be improved or adjusted”. She also pointed out that if other statistical
information needed to be collected, it was already too late to do so, and as the second
statistical report was delivered in October 1995, any new or better statistics could only
be collected thereafter. She was particularly disappointed with the third statistical
report. Her description of this report was as follows:
“It is extremely disappointing that the third report, which dealt with analysis
of data up to the end of December 95 took until June 98 to be delivered. It‟s
further disappointing that the quality of the statistical information leaves a lot
to be desired and the authors of the report have done their best to identify the
limitations of the quality of the information in the report. While producing
the statistics, it‟s simply telling you what the data is on the Register, but not
saying it is perfect, so how do you interpret it?”
“Q As a pathologist wanting to measure the performance of your
laboratory how helpful are each of these reports?
A Not very helpful, particularly the last one is very unhelpful.”
5.155 Professor McGoogan did not evaluate the Maori statistical report. She did, however,
comment that the bigger the database the more accurate the conclusions drawn from it,
and the smaller the database the more difficult it is to derive meaningful and
significant statistics. She, therefore, thought the numbers in the Maori statistics may
not be large enough and, although of interest to Maori to see what was happening to
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them, there may have been insufficient numbers to allow meaningful conclusions to be
drawn. When asked by the Committee to comment on the fact that the Maori
statistical data was at least four years old when first published in the Maori statistical
report, Professor McGoogan‟s response was:
“It may have been useful four years ago, but it doesn‟t tell you whether
things are different now, better now, or worse now, and we need to know
what‟s happening now.”
5.156 The Committee learnt that annual statistical reports were intended. However, their
publication was hampered by the difficulties that the Programme encountered in
obtaining reliable data. This was due to the fragmentation that resulted from having
14 stand-alone registers. Secondly the involvement of 14 area health boards had a
detrimental effect. The Committee learnt that some of the area health boards altered
the software of the registers in their regions and this affected the collection of
statistical data. Secondly the number of area health boards allowed room for
divergence in viewpoints to arise which led to actions differing from region to region.
For example the first statistical report, which was released in August 1993 and which
presented data to 18 August 1992, was first of all delayed, because the Wellington
Area Health Board would not provide data from its region, and finally the report was
published without data from Wellington. The release of the Wellington data was held
up by the security protocols of the Wellington Area Health Board‟s Ethics Committee.
Furthermore, the Programme delayed issuing a second statistical report until the
Wellington data became obtainable. The second statistical report was released in
October 1985 and it presented data to June 1994. It could not present data beyond that
date because no data from the Auckland Area Health Board region was available
beyond June 1994. The third statistical report was released in June 1998 and it
presented data to December 1995. Professor McGoogan, Professor Skegg and Dr Cox
were critical of the statistical reports in terms of their limited value for methodological
reasons, and also because the data was well out of date by the time the reports were
published. When those criticisms were put to Ms Grew her response was that not
having one database made it very difficult to produce statistical reports. Her view was
the first statistical report was affected by lack of data, but she thought that
subsequently it should have been possible to have got into a routine, and once there
was only one database it should have been “really easy to produce an annual report or
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even three monthly, six monthly”. Ms Grew was then asked to explain from her
perspective as a former national co-ordinator of the Programme why it was that only
three general statistical reports had been produced. She could not offer an
explanation. Ms Dahl said that until the register was reconfigured into one database it
was too difficult.
“Q From your perspective are you able to explain why there have only
been three statistical reports in the period?
A – Ms Grew I can‟t explain that.
A – Ms Dahl I can explain it was very difficult to do the second
statistical report and that related to the fact that we did have 14 registers at
the time. We had to create programs to get the information downloaded at
the 14 sites and compiled in Wellington so that we could do that reporting. I
would have envisaged that once we had the register reconfigured that the data
would be more readily available and it would have been an easier thing to
do.”
5.157 There was also no compulsory requirement to report incidences of cancer and deaths
from cancer until the passing of the Cancer Registry Act 1994. An effective Cancer
Registry is essential to enable a screening programme to be monitored and evaluated.
One way of testing the effectiveness of a screening programme is to carry out an audit
of the cases of cancer by retrospectively investigating the smear history and clinical
treatment of the women concerned. To do this there needs to be a reliable record of
the number of cases of cancer. On 5 April 1990 the Expert Group wrote to the
Minister of Health advising her of the urgent need for up-to-date statistical information
on cancer cases. The letter stated:
“ The Expert Group is resolved that it is impossible for it to adequately perform its task if the
Cancer Registry is not adequately functional. The Expert Group therefore recommends as a
matter of urgency the Cancer Registry is resourced with equipment, staff and legislative
framework to provide a complete up-to-date and confidential registry of all cancers and
cervical dysplasias in New Zealand.”
Ms Gillian Grew who was the first national co-ordinator of the Programme was asked
if she was aware of the Expert Group‟s views and whether or not she agreed with
them. She said she was aware of their views and she agreed with them:
“Q Were you aware that the Expert Group had that concern and what to your knowledge
was done about it?
135
A Ms Grew: I was aware when I arrived in the department that they had a concern and
there was quite a lot of work going on to actually secure the future of the Cancer Registry at
that time.
Q Do you agree with the sentiments in the letter
A Certainly. ”
5.158 Other experts from whom the Committee heard evidence also thought that a cancer
registry was necessary for the Programme to function effectively. Furthermore, this
type of advice in various forms was both available and given to the Department of
Health during the developmental stages of the Programme. This is stated in the World
Health Organisation Bulletin of 1986 titled Control of Cancer of the Cervix Uteri; the
World Health Organisation‟s Cervical Cancer Screening Programmes Managerial
Guidelines of 1992 and the European Guidelines for Quality Assurance In Cervical
Cancer Screening. However, it was not until 1994 that the legislation setting up a
cancer registry with mandatory reporting provisions was passed. Since then there
have been problems with the completeness of the Cancer Registry data. In addition
during the course of the Inquiry the Committee learnt that the Cancer Registry was not
releasing data in accordance with the law and was imposing an unnecessary obstacle
by requiring compliance with the Health and Information Privacy Code, even though
the Code had no application to processing requests for Cancer Registry information.
Failure To Conduct Any Comprehensive Exercise To Audit, Monitor And Evaluate The
Performance Of Laboratories Reading Cytology
5.159 It is important to be clear about the meaning given to the words “auditing,”
“monitoring” and “evaluation” as their meaning can differ depending on the user. The
Committee has chosen to adopt the definition of these words that is set out in exhibit
JMP/HFA/0023, the November draft of the Health Funding Authority‟s Evaluation
and Monitoring Plan for the National Cervical Screening Programme. “Monitoring”
means:
“…the continuous supervision of an activity for the purpose of checking
whether plans and procedures are being followed.
Within the meaning of “monitoring” is the act of “auditing” which is:
“a subset of monitoring and …[is] an investigation into whether an activity
meets explicit standards, as defined by an auditing document, for the purpose
of checking and improving the activity audited
136
“Evaluation” means:
“ a comparative assessment of the value of an intervention, in relation to
criteria and using systematically collected and analysed data, in order to
decide how to act.
“….other purposes of evaluation …[are]:
 a systematic way of learning from experience and using lessons learnt to
improve current activities and promote better planning by careful selection of
alternatives for future action.
 Programme evaluation is a diligent investigation of a programme‟s
characteristics and merits. Its purpose is to provide information on the
effectiveness of projects so as to optimise the outcomes, efficiency and
quality of health care.”
Throughout the time that Dr Bottrill was in practice, and subsequently, the National
Cervical Screening Programme has not carried out a comprehensive evaluation of its
overall performance, including the performance of laboratories reading cervical
cytology. Nor has it monitored the performance of laboratories reading cervical
cytology. The Ministry of Health took steps in 1995 to have a national evaluation of
the Programme carried out by an independent team of experts but as at September
2000 this national evaluation was incomplete and there are uncertainties still as to
when, and in what form it will be completed.
5.160 When the Health Funding Authority recognised that the level of under-reporting at
Gisborne Laboratories suggested there was a significant problem with its smear test
reporting, the Health Funding Authority reviewed the cervical cytology of other
laboratories which it had identified as being potential poor performers. This exercise
was a response to the problem that had arisen in the Gisborne region and, although it
provided information of a type which could come from a monitoring exercise, it can
not be seen as having been undertaken for the general purpose of monitoring and
evaluating laboratory performance. The Health Funding Authority acknowledged this
in its published report titled Review of Cervical Cytology Practice in New Zealand
Community Laboratories: 1990-1999. The Review states: “…this review does not
represent a thorough assessment and evaluation of the quality of cervical cytology
services.”
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5.161 The Committee considers that the failure to set up from the outset a National Cervical
Screening Programme with performance standards in place and with a means of
gathering reliable statistical data to enable laboratory performance to be monitored and
evaluated adequately are factors that are likely to have led to Dr Bottrill‟s under-
reporting of cervical smear tests. The Programme‟s lack of performance standards for
reading cervical cytology, and the absence of reliable data, made it difficult to monitor
and evaluate laboratory performance adequately.
5.162 The importance of monitoring and evaluation is made clear in the World Health
Organisation Bulletin of 1986 titled Control of Cancer of the Cervix Uteri which
states: “A cervical cancer control programme should not be initiated prior to the
establishment of adequate evaluation procedures. It is essential to assess progress of
the screening programme periodically both from the procedural standpoint, to
determine how effective the operations actually are, and in terms of achievement, to
analyse the extent to which morbidity and mortality have been reduced in the
population group covered.” The need for reliable data in order to monitor and
evaluate is clearly spelt out in the literature on cervical screening programmes. The
World Health Organisation‟s Cervical Cancer Screening Programmes Managerial
Guidelines of 1992 state: “For evaluation and monitoring purposes the data must be
maintained in a form that permits identification and linkage at an individual level, and
the information system should be so designed that it is accessible for such purposes.”.
The European Guidelines for Quality Assurance In Cervical Cancer Screening state
that: “ Before cervical screening can be implemented mechanisms for gathering
essential data for the day to day operation of the programme and for statistical
purposes must be in place.”
5.163 However, the lack of reliable data and performance standards should not lead to
nothing being done. When the Health Funding Authority had to carry out the Review
of Cervical Cytology Practice in New Zealand Community Laboratories: 1990-1999 it
overcame the absence of performance standards by focusing “on the assessment of risk
to women by examining markers of possible under-reporting of abnormalities.” It
recognised that this type of exercise did not enable a thorough assessment and
evaluation of quality in laboratory performance to be carried out. Nevertheless, it
allowed the Health Funding Authority to obtain some information about the
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performance of other potentially poor-performing laboratories. However, in the case
of the National Cervical Screening Programme even this type of evaluation was not
carried out.
5.164 It is of course possible that once the 1996 Cervical Screening Programme Statistics on
laboratory performance became available any evaluation of Gisborne Laboratories‟
performance, which covered the period prior to March 1996, may have failed to detect
under-reporting. Those statistics placed the laboratory‟s reporting rate within what the
Programme was treating as an acceptable range. The Committee heard expert
evidence that this information was misleading. This highlights the danger of
attempting to monitor a programme by poor methods. However, if the Programme
had monitored and evaluated laboratory performance adequately from an early stage,
even by looking for indicators of under-reporting as the Health Funding Authority did,
the extent of the under-reporting of cervical smear tests at Gisborne Laboratories may
have been detected much sooner. This would have reduced the number of women
affected by misread cervical smear tests.
5.165 The Committee has already commented on the failure to develop the performance
indicators to which the Policies of 1991 and 1993 referred. Both Policies in their
sections on evaluation and monitoring refer to the development of performance
indicators. The Committee has interpreted this reference to performance indicators as
an acknowledgement that some means of measuring performance was essential to
enable the Programme to be monitored and evaluated. Nevertheless, no performance
indicators were developed for the purpose of measuring laboratory performance.
5.166 The Ministry of Health maintained that some monitoring of the Programme was
undertaken, although they conceded that this monitoring gave no information on
laboratory practice. The Ministry also conceded that the National Cervical Screening
Programme had never been subject to a comprehensive evaluation. At the outset of
the Programme, when it came to laboratory practice in reading cervical cytology there
was a complete reliance on the professional integrity of the medical practitioners
responsible for the performance of this service. No attempt was made to ascertain the
accuracy of the practitioners and those working under their supervision in reading
cervical smear tests. Although, at this time the Social Security (Laboratory Diagnostic
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Services) Regulations 1981 were in force, there was no attempt to utilise the authority
they gave to inspect laboratory equipment and apparatus in order to check on
laboratories‟ performance. The Committee realises that the Ministry of Health now
submits that this part of the regulations is ultra vires. It will deal with this submission
under term of reference three. Nothing changed after the health reforms in 1993;
laboratory practice in reading cervical cytology was neither monitored nor evaluated.
5.167 Both the 1991 and 1993 Policies provided that the National Co-ordinator would be
responsible for ensuring that the National Cervical Screening Programme was
monitored and evaluated nationally, and that evaluation of projects and services
nationally would be co-ordinated by the Department of Health and subsequently by the
Ministry of Health. The Policy also provided that on a regional level it was the
responsibility of the area health board and subsequently the regional health authority
to monitor and evaluate the Programme in their area. However, Mr Mules of the
Midland Regional Health Authority told the Committee that the Midland Regional
Health Authority could not carry out this role as it did not have access to the necessary
information to enable monitoring and evaluation to take place. The information was
held by the Department and then subsequently the Ministry of Health. Once again, it
seems to the Committee that the design of the Policy did not reflect accurately the
capability of those given responsibilities under the Policy to discharge that
responsibility.
5.168 What is of most concern to the Committee, however, is the failure of the Department
of Health and subsequently the Ministry of Health to monitor and evaluate the
Programme at a national level. Under the Policy the National Co-ordinator was made
responsible for ensuring that national monitoring and evaluation took place. However,
it is clear from the job description of the National Co-ordinator and from the evidence
the Committee has heard of the role, that she had no authority to ensure that the
national monitoring and evaluation of the Programme was in fact carried out. The
Committee considers it is a design flaw of the Policy that it gave a responsibility to the
National Co-ordinator without ensuring that she had intrinsic or extrinsic power to
discharge that responsibility by requiring national monitoring and evaluation to be
carried out. Secondly, the Policy imposed a responsibility on the Department of
Health and subsequently the Ministry of Health to co-ordinate the monitoring and
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evaluation of the Programme. Again, the evidence shows to the Committee that the
Department of Health and subsequently the Ministry of Health was unable, sometimes
for practical reasons and other times for legal reasons, to discharge this responsibility.
The end result was that although both Policy documents made provision for
monitoring and evaluation of the Programme at a national level, including the
monitoring and evaluation of laboratory performance, it never occurred during the
time that Dr Bottrill was in practice. Indeed, from the evidence the Committee has
received it seems that the first attempt to carry out a national comprehensive
evaluation of the Programme is still incomplete. Dr Peters, who gave evidence for the
Health Funding Authority is the manager of the unit in which the National Cervical
Screening Programme has been housed since 1998. She accepted that there still has
not been a comprehensive evaluation of the national Programme.
“Q Dr Peters, I understand that you accept that at the moment there has
been no comprehensive evaluation of the nation Programme, is that correct?
A Yes.”
5.169 She also informed the Committee that from her perspective, quality standards and
monitoring and evaluation were just beginning.
“Q In respect of bringing in quality standards, monitoring and
evaluation, are you really starting from scratch with the programmes in terms
in that aspect of it?
A Well I feel as though I am.”
5.170 The Committee has learnt that there has never been an audit of cases of cervical cancer
even though this is considered to be one of the most effective ways of measuring the
effectiveness of a cervical screening programme. As early as 1986 the World Health
Organisation in its bulletin on Control Of Cancer Of The Cervix Uteri had stated that:
“Screening programmes can be evaluated by their failures. Cases
of symptomatic invasive cancer of the cervix, and especially of
advanced disease can be regarded as failures of a screening
programme. Knowledge of the age distribution of such cases and
of their screening history provides information of the effectiveness
of the programme in reaching the intended age groups and the
quality of the screening being carried out.”
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This form of monitoring and evaluation is particularly useful when a cervical
screening programme has no performance standards in place, however, it does depend
on access to reliable data on cancer incidence and mortality and smear test history.
Apart from the World Health bulletin the Committee was informed by: Professor
McGoogan, Professor Skegg, Dr Medley, Dr Peters, Dr Cox and Dr Teague that an
audit of cases of cervical cancer was the gold standard for measuring the effectiveness
of a cervical screening programme.
5.171 Such an audit has never been carried out in New Zealand. An attempt has been made
to carry it out as part of the national evaluation of the programme, but that has run into
legal and ethical obstacles. Ms Glackin acknowledged the difficulties that had
prevented this exercise from being carried out in New Zealand and said that Ministry
of Health officials had understood that ultimately this exercise would be carried out
routinely.
“I don‟t think there is any disagreement about the advice that following
people with cancer through was a gold standard in relation to treatment. And
in the light of that I‟m not sure what people – whoever was dealing with this
- felt in 1993, but you would have expected that issue might have been
addressed then.
5.172 If the Programme had carried out an audit of cervical cancer cases by looking back at
the cervical smear history of women who had developed cervical cancer and
investigating those who were registered as having normal smear tests within a set time
frame, such as five years prior to diagnosis, that is likely to have alerted the
Programme to the likelihood that there was an unacceptable level of under-reporting in
the Gisborne region. However, for reasons which will be covered in term of reference
three, it appears that access to the register for this purpose has not been permitted. In
any event it was not until December 1999 that the Ministry realised there was a legal
barrier to using the register as an audit tool. This indicates to the Committee that no
meaningful attempt had been made to use the register in this way before then:
Question: The evidence of, certainly Dr Cox was that this clinical audit or retrospective look at
women who developed invasive cancer should, as Ms Glackin said, be a routine occurrence.
Would you accept that if that had occurred early on in the Programme the problems with s.74A
would have been understood much more quickly than it has been now”
Answer Ms Glackin: I would, but I should make the comment that from a technical perspective
there are issues with having, apparently, sufficient numbers of women enrolled to make
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evaluation feasible. One of the issues with this programme is that until after the opt-off in
1993 we had quite small numbers. So I understand there were some technical issues about
when the evaluation could be done.
This comment from Ms Glackin indicates the major difficulties the Programme faced.
Evaluation was not possible before the Register became an opt-off single database.
Once it could be used for evaluation, which was by 1997 when it was reconfigured and
had sufficient numbers of women registered to provide meaningful data, the Ministry
discovered that s.74A of the Health Act 1956 posed a barrier to using the Register for
this purpose. The outcome is that during the time Dr Bottrill was in practice the
Register could not be used effectively to allow laboratory performance to be
monitored.
5.173 In June 1996, which was after Dr Bottrill had retired a new Policy for the Programme
was published. This Policy is relevant because if it had been designed to ensure that
the Programme was effectively monitored it would have revealed the extent of
Dr Bottrill‟s under-reporting earlier than has happened and this may have meant that
the high-grade abnormalities or cervical cancers of some women were detected earlier
and therefore they may have been more responsive to treatment.
5.174 Like the earlier Policies the Policy of 1996 provided that the main responsibility of the
Ministry of Health was to monitor and evaluate the National Cervical Screening
Programme and to monitor and analyse the state of public health regarding the
incidence of cervical cancer and associated risk factors in New Zealand. The Policy
also provided that regional health authorities were responsible for monitoring and
evaluating the Programme in each regional health authority region. Once again, there
was the difficult tension between the Policy’s placement of responsibility for national
monitoring and evaluating on the Ministry of Health with the responsibilities the
funding agreements imposed on regional health authorities. Ms Glackin said to the
Committee that under the 1996 Policy it was a requirement on the Health Funding
Authority to purchase the Programme in line with that Policy. However, the impact of
the split accountability between the Ministry of Health and the Health Funding
Authority and the design of the 1996 Policy meant that the regional health authorities
left monitoring and evaluating to the Ministry of Health.
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“Q The difficulty was that, Ms Glackin, we had evidence from
Mr Mules that the regional health authorities considered that under the 96
funding agreement responsibility for monitoring and evaluating the
Programme remained with the Ministry of Health, and he referred to that in
his evidence to say this is why, as far as he was concerned, the Midland
Regional Health Authority did not consider that it had to do that because it
was looking at the screening policy documents and under those policy
documents responsibility for monitoring and evaluating the Programme
remained with the Ministry of Health.
A – Ms Glackin Yes, and that issue of split accountability was actually
canvassed in the 1996 review. I think the Ministry has no difficulty with
recognising the problems that arose from that division. I would just make a
point though in relation to evaluation that the Ministry initially put funding in
its budget and began initial work on a formal evaluation in 1996.”
It should be noted that the formal evaluation that Ms Glackin speaks of is the one that
is still to be completed.
5.175 Ms Glackin told the Committee that the evaluation was first discussed in 1995 and the
Ministry decided to proceed with a national comprehensive evaluation in 1996.
Tenders were put out and in January 1997 a contract was signed with the University of
Otago for a scoping of the evaluation. The first draft of the evaluation was received in
May 1997 and that proved to be too expensive. There was then much consultation
about what should occur. Ultimately a shortened form of evaluation was agreed
covering three specific areas and a contract to carry that out was signed with the
Ministry in May 1999. As at 6 August 2000, when Ms Glackin was giving her
evidence to the Committee, of the three areas to be evaluated one had been completed,
one had received Ethics Committee approval three weeks earlier, and the third, which
was the audit of cervix cancer incidence and mortality, was not proceeding because of
the difficulties in gaining access to information. Had a national evaluation been
carried out anytime after Dr Bottrill‟s retirement in March 1996 it ought to have
detected earlier the unacceptable level of under-reporting in the Gisborne region. That
knowledge should have led to women receiving treatment earlier on and it may have
avoided cancer mortality or severely invasive treatment for cancer.
5.176 Without monitoring and evaluation it is impossible for a pathologist to be aware of the
accuracy of his or her reading of cervical cytology. All screening programmes that
involve analysis of cellular material are dependent upon the accuracy and competency
144
of the practitioner responsible for reading the cellular material. Unless the
practitioner‟s work is monitored and evaluated mistakes are not likely to be detected
until the deteriorating health of the screening subject causes the practitioner‟s work to
be reviewed. By that time it can often be too late to cure the patient, or if the disease
is still curable severely invasive treatment may be required to achieve a cure.
5.177 The success of the National Cervical Screening Programme depended on pathologists
and other laboratory workers reading cervical smear tests competently and accurately.
If the Programme had monitored the performance of laboratories reading cervical
cytology the unacceptable level of under-reporting at Gisborne Laboratories would
have been detected much earlier on and, therefore, fewer women would have been
harmed. Furthermore, the information gained from monitoring laboratory
performance could have been used to inform Gisborne Laboratories that the cervical
cytology read at the laboratory was not being read competently. As it was, throughout
the time that Dr Bottrill was in practice at Gisborne Laboratories, neither Dr Bottrill
nor any other director or officer of the company was provided with information, from
any Crown body or agency responsible for the Programme, which would have
informed them that there was an unacceptable level of under-reported cervical smear
tests. The Committee considers that to run a screening programme that is dependent
on laboratories performing their role competently without providing them with any
feedback on their performance, is a factor that can lead laboratories to under-report the
tests they carry out. Consequently it considers that the failure to provide this
information to laboratories is a factor that is likely to have led to the under-reporting at
Gisborne Laboratories.
Failure To Take Heed Of Overseas Screening Failures
5.178 Between 1993 and 1994 there were three incidents overseas of a laboratory causing a
failure in a cervical screening programme by under-reporting cervical cytology. These
incidents occurred in Australia and the United Kingdom. The Cervical Screening
Advisory Committee brought these screening failures to the attention of the National
Co-ordinator of the Programme and the Ministry of Health, and they were published in
the National Cervical Screening Programme‟s newsletters. In addition in June 1994 a
hospital pathologist at Goodhealth Wanganui was found to have misread biopsy
145
specimens. The pathologist was 62 years of age and had been diagnosed with
Parkinson‟s Disease in late 1993. A review of his work revealed that he did not
participate in quality assurance activities; he did not participate in continuing medical
education and he was working in an isolated environment. It was recognised that all
of these circumstances may have impaired his work as a pathologist.
5.179 Given the information that was available about the mis-reporting in Australia and the
United Kingdom, and the findings from the Wanganui investigation it is surprising
that neither the Programme nor any other unit within the Ministry of Health initiated a
review of New Zealand laboratories reading cervical cytology; particularly those
laboratories, like Gisborne Laboratories, which in some respects resembled the
practice at Goodhealth Wanganui. The Programme‟s staff would have known that
laboratory performance in reading cervical cytology had never been properly
monitored and evaluated, so that the quality of the laboratories‟ performance was not
definitively known. These local and foreign incidences of laboratory error were a
signal to the Programme that laboratory error can occur and when it did it could have a
damaging impact on patients‟ health. While the Programme had no direct power to
take any action against laboratories it was the entity under the Policy which was
responsible for ensuring that the Programme was monitored and evaluated nationally
and so in the Committee‟s view it should have responded by initiating a review of
laboratory performance.
5.180 The overseas screening failures occurred during the time that Ms Dahl was the
national co-ordinator. The incidents were noted in the Programme‟s newsletter. The
Committee learnt from Dr Cox who was on the Cervical Screening Advisory
Committee that after the second incident the Advisory Committee advised the national
co-ordinator (Ms Dahl) that this type of event could occur in New Zealand and that
appropriate quality assurance was needed to minimise the risk of it occurring.
Ms Dahl told the Committee that she could not recall Dr Cox specifically saying that
at the meeting, but she did recall that at the time she was working with the Advisory
Committee to develop quality assurance processes, monitoring processes, and
evaluation processes so she said that she could only surmise that it was considered as
part of what was being done in relation to that. When asked to comment on why the
Programme did not respond to the these incidents by initiating a review of laboratory
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performance in New Zealand, her response was that the overseas incidences of
misreporting had not brought home to the Programme the need for a review.
“Q When I asked Dr Cox whether or not – I asked him both in respect
of each article [in the Programme‟s newsletter] they provided a wakeup call,
and he said they did, and I then said well in view of the first two wakeup
calls, once a second had been received what do you think should have
happened, and he said as a matter of urgency I would expected a review of
laboratory practice processes to reduce the chances of a similar event
occurring in New Zealand. What comment do you have on that?
A – Ms Dahl The only comment that I can have is that the wakeup call
was not sufficiently loud to have that occur.”
5.181 In his evidence Dr Cox referred to a Programme newsletter of January/February 1993
which contained an article on the accuracy of smear tests of 237 women referred to the
Royal Hospital for Women in Sydney for invasive cervical cancer. The article noted
that a worrying aspect was the number of patients whose previous smears on review
showed frankly malignant cells but were originally reported as normal.
5.182 In a second Programme newsletter of March/April 1994 there was an article on a
screening failure in Great Britain which described how a group of 2,000 women were
recalled in Grennock where smears had been wrongly read for five years in a
laboratory described as understaffed, antiquated and isolated. Dr Cox said that the
Advisory Committee advised the national co-ordinator that “This type of event could
occur in New Zealand and that appropriate quality assurance is needed to minimise the
risk of such an event occurring.”.
5.183 The Midland Regional Health Authority did respond to the Wanganui incident by
writing to all of its laboratory providers including Gisborne Laboratories. In his
response Dr Bottrill told Midland that the laboratory had applied for TELARC
accreditation in histopathology and cytology, he advised that he did not participate in
any external quality control programmes, but said that he did attend at least one
national or international conference or course every year. He concluded his letter by
stating “There is little likelihood of a major misdiagnosis of the type you refer to in
your letter.”
147
5.184 Dr Malpass of the Midland Regional Health Authority judged the response from
Gisborne Laboratories to be unsatisfactory and referred it to the Chief Executive,
(Mr Mules), to determine what action, if any, should be taken. Mr Mules decided that
the Regional Health Authority had no power to refuse to fund laboratory services from
Gisborne Laboratories. At the time the legal relationship between the regional health
authority and the laboratory was governed by a notice issued under s.51 of the Health
and Disability Services Act. Mr Mules believed that the laboratory was not in breach
of any of the terms of the s.51 notice and there were no other sanctions that the
regional health authority could apply against it. For this reason it seems no action was
taken as a result of Dr Bottrill‟s unsatisfactory response, and the Midland Regional
Health Authority conducted no investigation into his laboratory‟s practices or
processes.
5.185 The Committee considers that s.51 of the Health and Disabilities Act permitted
regional health authorities to issue notices which contained terms and conditions that
gave to them the power to require laboratories to adopt quality assurance measures,
including TELARC accreditation, and to suspend laboratories from receiving payment
if their services were a risk to public health. The Committee‟s reasons for reaching
this conclusion are set out in the section of the report on term of reference three. It
was also possible to change the terms and conditions of s.51 notices on the giving of
appropriate notice. Therefore, the Committee considers that the Midland Regional
Health Authority should have carried out an investigation of Gisborne Laboratories. If
the investigation had shown that action was warranted the Midland Regional Health
Authority could then have taken steps under s.51 to change the terms and conditions of
the notice to allow for appropriate action to be taken.
5.186 The opportunity, in 1994, which the Programme and the Midland Regional Health
Authority had to uncover the presence of unacceptable under-reporting at Gisborne
Laboratories was missed, with the consequence that Dr Bottrill continued to practise
until his retirement in March 1996. During this time more women had their smears
misreported and, therefore, they did not receive the appropriate follow up treatment.
In the Committee‟s view the failure by either the Programme/Ministry of Health or the
Midland Regional Health Authority to follow up the local and foreign incidents of
laboratory error which in turn led to a loss of opportunity to discover the under-
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reporting at Gisborne Laboratories earlier is a factor that is likely to have led to the
under-reporting that occurred from 1994 onwards.
Failure To Ensure All Components Of The Programme Were In Place From An Early
Stage
5.187 There was a failure to ensure that all the components of the National Cervical
Screening Programme were in place from the outset or, alternatively at an early stage
in the Programme‟s development. If all the missing components had been in place
from an early stage in the Programme, that is: reliable statistical data, performance
standards, monitoring and evaluation of laboratory performance and compulsory
quality assurance of laboratories, they would have prevented Dr Bottrill from
practising as he did.
5.188 The need to have all the components of the Programme in place from an early stage
was recognised early in the Programme‟s development, by the Ministerial Review
Committee in its November 1989 report On Implementation Of A National Cervical
Screening Programme. The Ministerial Review Committee stated:
“For a cervical screening programme to be successful all aspects must be
developed simultaneously as each is an integral part of achieving success.”
5.189 Ms Glackin accepted this and told the Committee that over time the Programme had
been progressing towards having everything in place.
“Q And do you agree this really reinforces what the World Health
Organisation was saying to run a programme effectively you really need to
have all aspects in place at once, or if you are building up good data from the
cancer register and the screening register and you can make the necessary
links, and if you can make the necessary links between cytology and
histology all these factors go to help you identify more readily cases where
the programme might be failing in respect of under-reporting of smear tests.
A – Ms Glackin I would agree with that, and I think, looking over time what
we have been doing is progressing towards that state. I think the Inquiry is
well aware of how long various aspects of that have taken. I should perhaps
make the point of course which the Inquiry is well aware of, that the cancer
registry deals with cancers of all sorts.”
However, the progress Ms Glackin referred to is still to be completed. The re-
configuration of the Register was completed by 1997 and since that date reliable data
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should have been available to monitor and evaluate the Programme. Compulsory
TELARC accreditation has been in place since 1997. However, there have been other
obstacles to surmount. The end result is that even today some of the components are
still missing. Reliable data is still hard to access because of legal and ethical barriers
and the Programme has still not been comprehensively monitored and evaluated. This
is ten years after the Programme was operative in the Gisborne region.
No Compulsory Reassessment Of Medical Practitioners
5.190 There were no compulsory requirements for medical practitioners to undertake formal
continuing education, or for them to have their competence reassessed. The
Committee considers that this too was a factor that is likely to have led to the
unacceptable under-reporting in the Gisborne region. Had Dr Bottrill been required to
undergo formal continuing education and a re-assessment of his competency as a
medical practitioner it is unlikely that he would have continued to practice as he did.
The impact of formal continuing education could well have brought home to him the
risk his practices posed to patients. A re-assessment of his competency would most
likely have revealed that he was being overly cautious in diagnosing abnormalities;
that he had “ calibrated” his eyes to read smear tests with a very high specificity and
that he needed to increase the sensitivity of his reporting. The Committee has
concluded that Dr Bottrill was unaware of the risk his practices posed to patients.
Compulsory participation in a formal course of continuing education and re-
assessment of his competence should have remedied this. For this reason the
Committee has concluded that the absence of any requirement to participate in
continuing education or any formal re-assessment of competency are factors that are
likely to have led to the unacceptable under-reporting in the Gisborne region.
Conclusion
5.191 The Committee has identified those factors directly relating to Dr Bottrill‟s practice
which it considers are likely to have led to unacceptable under-reporting in the
Gisborne region. It has also identified factors relating to the delivery of cervical
cytology services during the time that Dr Bottrill was in practice and afterwards which
it considers are likely to have led to under-reporting in the sense that it was the
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presence of these factors which enabled Dr Bottrill to practise as he did and which
meant that the under-reporting was not detected sooner. If Dr Bottrill had not been
able to practise on his own, carrying out all the primary screening in circumstances
where there was no internal or external quality control at Gisborne Laboratories, and
where the laboratory was not registered with TELARC or any other quality control
authority, it is unlikely that he would have under-reported for as long as he did and at
such an unacceptable level. An effective, well-designed and well-implemented
programme would have prevented him from practising in this way. Ultimately, it was
the flaws in the National Cervical Screening Programme that permitted Dr Bottrill to
practise as he did. In August 1990 the Expert Group‟s Policy Statement of the
National Cervical Screening Programme recognised that screening can fail because of
poor quality in either the smear taking or smear reading. The Policy Statement noted
that there had been reports of deficiencies in these aspects of screening in parts of
New Zealand. The Policy Statement went on to emphasise the importance of
management systems in ensuring that poor quality in smear taking or smear reading
did not cause a programme to fail:
“In an organised programme, the management system can minimise the
possibility of such failures by measuring the technical quality of the
screening process and by monitoring the follow up of women with abnormal
smears.”
It is unfortunate that the recognition in 1989 of the importance of a screening
programme‟s management system did not flow through to ensure that it was well
designed and well implemented.
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6. TERM OF REFERENCE THREE
Whether or not the under-reporting by Dr Bottrill was an isolated case rather than evidence of
a systemic issue for the National Cervical Screening Programme?
6.1 The Committee considers that the under-reporting by Dr Bottrill is evidence of a
systemic issue for the National Cervical Screening Programme. It does not consider
that the under-reporting can be seen as an isolated case of error on the part of Dr
Bottrill. In reporting on term of reference two, the Committee has set out the factors
that it considers are likely to have led to the under-reporting. Many of these factors
relate to flaws in the Programme. In essence, the Committee‟s view is that a well-
designed, soundly based and well implemented screening programme would have
eliminated those aspects of Dr Bottrill‟s practice that were responsible for the under-
reporting. The practices followed by Dr Bottrill, and on rare occasions others at
Gisborne Laboratories, would either have been replaced with better, more appropriate
practices or the reading of cervical cytology at Gisborne Laboratories would have
stopped. In either event, the risk of under-reporting would have been reduced. Smear
tests would either have been read at Gisborne Laboratories with improved practices or
they would have been read elsewhere at laboratories with better practices.
6.2 Dr Bottrill does present as an extreme case. The Committee is aware of no other
pathologist at a community laboratory who was practising in quite the same way as
Dr Bottrill (and the locums Gisborne Laboratories employed from time to time).
However, the evidence the Committee has heard has convinced it that the issues
relating to the under-reporting at Gisborne Laboratories extend beyond the practices
adopted in that laboratory. The Ministry of Health submits that Dr Bottrill‟s method
of practice was unlike that followed by any other pathologist and, therefore, it
constituted an isolated case. However, the question for the Committee to report on
under term of reference three is whether or not the unacceptable under-reporting was
an isolated case. In that regard the Ministry accepts that the presence of other
unacceptable under-reporting over the last decade cannot be ruled out. This is
consistent with Dr Gabrielle Medley‟s comment on the Health Funding Authority‟s
National Laboratory Review, which was carried out to determine if other women were
152
at risk. Dr Medley is a cytopathologist from Australia who was engaged by the Health
Funding Authority to assist it with this review.
“I would not believe that this review could reassure you about the
years 1991 to 1996 in a wholehearted manner.”
6.3 Term of Reference Three requires the Committee to focus on the under-reporting
which occurred and to form a view on whether or not that was the result of an isolated
case or a systemic problem for the National Cervical Screening Programme. In the
Committee‟s view an isolated case of under-reporting is one that occurs irrespective of
the wider context in which it takes place. It is something that could have occurred
irrespective of the quality of the Programme. Whereas, under-reporting which
represents a systemic problem for the Programme is something that occurs because the
Programme has permitted it to occur. False negative smears will occur from time to
time in the best of screening programmes and when they do they can be seen as
isolated cases where there has been an understandable failure to read a smear test
correctly. A sustained unacceptable level of under-reporting which spans a period
from 1990 to 1996 and which goes unrecognised by the pathologist responsible for
reading the smear tests and by the Programme is something different. That can only
occur because the Programme lacked the systems and procedures to prevent it. The
deficient practices followed at Gisborne Laboratories, which led to the under-
reporting, carried on for as long as they did because there was no system or procedure
in place either to detect them or to stop them. Those factors which the Committee has
identified in its report on term of reference two as being likely to have led to the
unacceptable under-reporting were the result of an environment where there was little
control on how laboratories delivered their diagnostic services; even though their
services were fully funded by government money. The way in which the Programme
was designed and operated did nothing to prevent laboratories lacking quality control
processes, from misreading smear tests. Without quality control there was a greater
likelihood this would happen and without effective monitoring and evaluation of
laboratory performance there was no way of detecting misreporting if it did happen.
This set of circumstances could only arise if there were systemic problems with the
Programme.
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6.4 There is a mass of literature on what constitutes an effective cervical screening
programme. This literature, which was available from the late 1980s onwards,
recognises the possibility of false negative reports in screening programmes and the
dangers that flow from them. The view the Committee has formed on what are the
essential attributes of an effective screening programme is based on this early
literature and not on later literature. The Ministry of Health submitted to the
Committee that it must not allow “hindsight bias” to colour its judgement. The
Committee is confident that it has not done so. It has formed its views on literature
that was published between 1986 and 1993 at the latest and the reports of various
advisory groups between 1990 and 1991. Further, there is nothing fundamental in the
1993 literature (the European Guidelines For Quality Assurance In Cervical Cancer
Screening) that was not already stated in the World Health Bulletin on Control of
Cancer of the Cervix Uteri which was published in 1986. The 1993 literature has been
relied on simply as confirmation of the recommendations in the earlier literature.
6.5 In the Committee‟s view, an effective screening programme is one which has in place,
from an early stage, systems and procedures which are designed: to reduce the
likelihood of false negative tests occurring; secondly to avoid them going unnoticed
for a long time, when they do occur; and thirdly to prevent, where possible, whatever
is directly responsible for the false negatives from continuing to produce them.
Because the National Cervical Screening Programme did not have such systems and
procedures in place throughout the time that Dr Bottrill was reading smear tests (and
even after his retirement), he was able to continue with his sub-optimal practices until
his retirement in March 1996. The Programme did nothing to raise concerns about the
quality of his reporting. Such concerns were raised by women who, as a result of their
cervical disease becoming clearly apparent, learnt that their earlier smear tests had
been misread as normal. The Committee considers that this shows the Programme has
systemic problems. Because some of these problems continue to this day the
Committee will not confine this section of the report to the time frame in which Dr
Bottrill was operating. For ease of reference it is better if current systemic problems
which originate during the time Dr Bottrill was in practice are dealt with under this
heading rather than under the subsequent terms of reference.
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6.6 To report on this term of reference it is necessary for the Committee to form a view on
when the National Cervical Screening Programme began. The Ministry of Health
submitted to the Committee that the Programme did not begin until the 14 screening
registers were in place. This would be January 1992. The Committee disagrees with
this view. It considers that the Programme cannot be seen as having a single
commencement date; its beginning is best seen as a series of developmental phases.
Its genesis was a recommendation in the Cartwright Report for a national cervical
screening programme. That Report was published in July 1988. After the public
release of the Cartwright Report the Minister of Health announced his commitment to
establishing a cervical screening programme. Between 6 and 8 December 1988 there
was a national cervical screening workshop held in Porirua (the Porirua Workshop).
Approximately 100 people who were broadly representative of the groups and
organisations concerned with the provision of an appropriate cervical screening
service participated in the workshop. Subsequently on 20 December 1988 the
Minister met with his officials to discuss the recommendations of the Porirua
Workshop. Decisions were made at that meeting which were intended to advance the
establishment of a national cervical screening programme. Subsequently a new
Minister of Health formed the view that the programme‟s progress was being unduly
delayed, and 25 August 1989 she sent a memorandum to the Director General of
Health outlining her concern about the slow pace in setting up the Programme and
requiring the appointment of a ministerial advice group to speed up progress. A
ministerial advisory group (the Ministry Review Committee) was appointed and it
reported to the Minister in November 1989. Its main recommendations, which were
accepted, included: abandoning the planned national launch of the Programme, instead
the Programme was to commence in each area health board region when the necessary
programme components were in place, (this explains why it is not possible to fix a
point in time for the Programme‟s beginning); appointing a national co-ordinator,
including a Maori co-ordinator; and appointing an expert advisory group. An expert
advisory group was appointed and it had its first meeting in December 1989. The first
national co-ordinator was appointed in June 1990. The first written policy for the
Programme, the Government National Cervical Screening Policy 1991, was released
in 1991. The 14 cervical screening registers became operational during 1991 with the
last one, (the Wellington register), becoming operational in January 1992.
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6.7 Thus the chronological history of the National Cervical Screening Programme can be
divided into a series of phases. The first phase is from July 1988 to December 1988
when the decision to set up the Programme was made. The second is from January
1989 until December 1990 when the Programme was being designed. The third is
from January 1991 to January 1992 when its implementation began, as each of the 14
cervical screening registers were set in place and began to operate in its area health
board region. After January 1992 the Programme commenced operating nationally.
6.8 A Department of Health document dated October 1992 entitled Expenditure of the
Cervical Screening Programme at the Area Health Board Level 1990-91 the First
Establishment Year records 1990 to 1991 as being the first year of the establishment
phase of the Programme. This fits with the Committee‟s view. As has already been
noted in this report the Government National Cervical Screening Policy of 1991
contemplated all laboratories being TELARC accredited by 1993. The Committee
considers it is a reasonable assumption to make that in 1991 the Government
contemplated that by 1993 the Programme would be fully operational in the sense that
by 1993 all components of the Programme would be in place. By the end of 1993
approximately two years would have passed since the Programme became operational.
It may have seemed to persons responsible for the Programme in 1991 that by 1993
laboratories would have had sufficient time to gain accreditation; registers would be
up and running and the women who had enrolled when the registers first became
operational would have been appropriately processed. The plan was that a woman
would have two smear tests 12 months apart and if they were both normal she would
then move to having one smear test every three years. The years between 1988 and
1989 can be seen as the design phase, the years between 1990 and 1993 can be seen as
the establishment phase, and from 1993 onwards the Programme should have been
fully operational.
Essential Components of a Cervical Screening Programme
6.9 Systemic problems can be avoided if a screening programme is well designed and well
implemented. The essential components of an effective cervical screening programme
are: a clearly expressed written policy which spells out the aims and purpose of the
programme; and a clearly expressed written operational plan which spells out how the
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policy will be achieved. Where possible, quantitative performance standards should
be specified so that the programme‟s success in achieving its aims can be properly
measured. It also requires an effective computerised registration programme which
records cytology and histology data of women enrolled on the programme. The
registration system should also either contain cancer mortality and morbidity data, or
be linked to a cancer register which records such data. The registration system should
be set up in such a way that it comprises a national record of the women enrolled on
the programme. To the extent that any work on the registration system is done in a
regional area, that work should be under the direct control of the central office
responsible for the cervical screening programme. The direct control can either be
through a contract based system, so that the regional work is performed by
independent contractors, or persons based in a regional area who are employed by the
central office. In any event, work done in any regional area has to be subject to
authority and sanctions exercised by the central office; that is the only way in which
national consistency of the registration system can be achieved. The data that is
recorded on the registration system should be accessible by those persons working for
the programme, be they employees or independent contractors. The type of data
recorded and how it is used should be determined by the epidemiological benefit to be
obtained from the data. In the Committee‟s view the examples given in the European
Guidelines for Cervical Screening Programmes are a good example of the type of data
required to run a screening programme effectively. Because a screening programme is
dependent on the quality of smears taken and smears read, it is essential that both the
smear taking and the smear reading process is subject to quantitative standards which
include sound quality control processes, both internal and external. The programme
should be capable of routinely monitoring and evaluating its progress. There should
not be an imbalance of attention and focus given to any one component of the
programme.
6.10 Essentially, a cervical screening programme is a medical programme. Medical
practitioners with specialist qualifications and experience in public health and
epidemiology know what is essential for a screening programme to be successful and
what can safely be left out. These persons are best able to make decisions on the
design and implementation of a screening programme. Once a screening programme
is established it should be managed from a central office by someone with both
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medical and management expertise, who has sufficient authority to ensure that what
needs to be done, is done. The manager should have overall control of all parts of the
Programme including sufficient authority to require actions to be taken and to impose
sanctions when they are not. Without this structure confusion over responsibilities and
consequent inaction will result.
Systemic Problems Of The National Cervical Screening Programme
6.11 All of the components of the National Cervical Screening Programme were not in
place from an early stage. Instead the Programme began with a misplaced focus on
increasing the number of women having smear tests taken at the expense of other
components of the Programme. Secondly, the Programme‟s design was influenced by
non-medical persons who perhaps failed to recognise the essential medical
requirements of a screening programme. Consequently components which needed to
be in place from the outset were not, such as a registration system which enabled
linkages between cytology and histology results and cervical cancer morbidity and
mortality. Compromises were made in respect of their inclusion in the Programme.
The end result was that the Programme was vulnerable to systemic failures. Although
steps were taken later to remedy the systemic problems created by this imbalance,
even today the Programme has not fully recovered from it.
6.12 The Committee has reached the view that during the time Dr Bottrill was in practice
there were a number of systemic problems which the Committee considers allowed the
unacceptable reporting to occur and to go undetected for as long as it did. Some of
these problems have already been identified in Term of Reference Two as factors that
are likely to have led to the unacceptable under-reporting. Other problems underlie
those identified earlier.
6.13 The systemic problems in total are :
(i) No compulsory quality assurance of laboratories reading cervical cytology;
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(ii) A poorly designed management structure which split the responsibilities for
parts of the Programme between various health agencies which resulted in
confusion and fragmentation of the Programme;
(iii) No quantitative performance standards against which to measure the
performance of the various parts of the Programme;
(iv) No central computerised registration system which would have allowed
cytology, histology and cancer morbidity and mortality data to be inter-linked
for each woman participating in the Programme ;
(v) Failure to gather reliable relevant statistical information;
(vi) Failure to routinely monitor and evaluate all parts of the Programme‟s
performance;
(vii) Failure to establish strong centralised leadership with sufficient authority and
qualifications to ensure what needed to be done was done;
(viii) Failure to follow the advice of various experts on the Programme.
(ix) Failure to ensure there was the legal power to do what was needed for the
Programme to be effective; and failure to exercise or to exercise properly legal
powers that were available to achieve this end.
6.14 The matters listed in (i) to (vi) above have all been discussed in the Committee‟s
report on Term of Reference Two. There is no need to elaborate further on them. The
matters listed in (vii) to (ix) will be outlined below.
Failure To Provide Strong Centralised Leadership With The Appropriate
Qualifications And Authority To Initiate Action
6.15 A feature of the Programme throughout the time Dr Bottrill was in practice, was the
splitting of leadership functions between central (Department of Health/Ministry of
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Health) and regional (area health boards/regional health authorities) agencies. In
addition, those leadership functions which were the responsibility of the central health
agency were often further split between the agency‟s various business units. The
Programme‟s management structure was unnecessarily complex.
6.16 From the outset there was a failure to provide for strong centralised leadership of the
Programme which had the appropriate authority to ensure it could carry out the task of
establishing and maintaining a cervical screening programme. This absence of strong
leadership continued throughout the time that Dr Bottrill was in practice. Secondly,
the Department of Health/Ministry of Health officials who were involved with the
Programme lacked the appropriate qualifications and expertise to appreciate fully the
implications of the Programme‟s design and implementation. The national co-
ordinators had a nursing background. They were not medically qualified. The
Committee considers that the national co-ordinators lacked the necessary knowledge
and experience to recognise the Programme‟s systemic problems and the risk they
carried.
6.17 In 1988 at the Porirua Workshop the Minister of Health gave an opening address in
which he posed the question :
“What we need to know in essence is : what do we need to get a national
screening programme up and running as soon as possible?”
Subsequently, at a meeting on 20 December 1988 Health Department officials who
had considered the recommendations coming from the Porirua workshop presented the
Minister with their recommendations to “get a national screening programme up and
running”. These included, inter alia:
(i) The formation of an executive group with decision-making power to control
the National Cervical Screening Programme and to allocate funding for the
Programme to area health boards;
(ii) The creation of the role of national co-ordinator of the Programme, with the
national co-ordinator being accountable to the executive group. It was
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envisaged that there would be two national co-ordinators, both women, and at
least one of whom was Maori;
(iii) The provision of specific and separate funding for the screening Programme
that was additional to that presently allocated to Vote : Health.
6.18 If these recommendations had been accepted the Programme would have started with a
strong foundation. An executive group with funding control would have been in a
strong position to progress the design and establishment of the screening programme.
Dr Boyd told the Committee that this was one of the recommendations on which
everyone at the workshop had reached a consensus, and that those who attended the
workshop were persons whose opinions were valued. However, the Minister did not
accept the recommendations. Instead:
(i) He approved the appointment of a national co-ordinator; and
(ii) He decided that instead of an executive group with decision-making power he
would appoint a steering group with an advisory role and with no executive
functions. This group was to have a “time-limited” role with advisory and
monitoring functions. The note records that the ability to go public would be
its final sanction.
6.19 The Committee questioned Dr Boyd on the wisdom of appointing an advisory group
instead of an executive group to develop the National Cervical Screening Programme.
The Committee considered Dr Boyd to be a witness who was competent to provide
expert opinion evidence as a clinician on matters of health care and its delivery in New
Zealand, including the provision of cervical cytology and the National Cervical
Screening Programme. He has been employed in the Ministry, and before that the
Department of Health, in various roles connected with the delivery of health services
since 1980. He has been a registered medical practitioner since 1964 and he is
registered with the Medical Council of New Zealand in the specialities of general
practice and public health medicine. Dr Boyd was asked to provide his opinion as a
clinician on the appropriateness of an advisory group in preference to an executive
group. His view was that an executive group of the size envisaged by the persons who
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made the recommendation would have been difficult; he thought that a board of
management with a chief-executive would have been a better option.
“Q I note your reply that you did not think that an executive group of
the size envisaged would have been workable. Can I ask you in comparison
with the advisory group, would a small executive group with decision-
making control and funding have been preferable to an advisory group?
A Yes, indeed. But there would also need to be one other factor again
from my reading the British experience, that is a chief executive or
somebody who is accountable to the board for the management and doesn‟t
expect an advisory group to make all the decisions and someone who also
can give the programme a profile.
Q So to summarise then is it fair to say you think the ideal delivery for
the programme would have been a small executive group similar to a small
board of directors with a chief executive who had a largely public profile and
was seen as the day to day decision-maker?
A With plenty of opportunity for input and consultation from
stakeholders, affected people, and particularly the women concerned, none of
that I envisaged was achieved in the Programme, but as I say it was not my
decision to make.
Q Could you outline to the Committee just to clarify matters, what it
was that you envisaged?
A I think as I‟ve described, a person to be held accountable for the
success or failure of the programme and who was answerable to a group of, I
call them a board of directors, who would be chosen by the Minister for their
skills and recommendations of affected groups, but also with advice and
input from organisations, groups, whanau, whoever, to represent the users of
the service as well as the technical people involved.
…
Q The model that you have described - has anything resembling that
model ever been put in place in respect of a New Zealand cervical screening
programme?
A No it hasn‟t.”
6.20 The Committee agrees with Dr Boyd‟s opinion. From the evidence the Committee has
seen, it is clear that the Programme needed a chief-executive in whom sufficient power
was vested to ensure that the Programme was established and run properly. The
Programme‟s management structure, from its design in 1989/1990 until 1998, with
split responsibilities between a number of individuals, groups and entities resulted in a
confused understanding of who was responsible for what, and it made it difficult to
attribute any responsibility for inaction or failures in the Programme to any one
person, group or entity. This was acknowledged by Ms Glackin in her evidence. She
told the Committee: “ the point I have attempted to make is it is difficult given the
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structure of the Ministry to assign personal responsibility to individuals for things as
complex as the delivery of this Programme”. Furthermore, it is hard to see how any
individual, group or entity could be held responsible for defects or failures in the
Programme when they lacked the power to remedy such defects or failures.
6.21 The design of the Programme provided for a national co-ordinator who was
responsible for ensuring the effective management and co-ordination of the
Programme. This was not what happened. The Programme‟s services were delivered
by a complex chain of different health providers. The national co-ordinator did not
have the necessary power to ensure the Programme‟s effective management and co-
ordination. She had no authority to require action to be taken or to impose sanctions
when nothing happened. All she could do was request others to carry out whatever
action she thought advisable.
6.22 Ms Glackin described the national co-ordinator as having available to her at any given
time only the powers of the particular organisation in which her position was placed.
However, this is an over-statement because the national co-ordinator could not
exercise that organisation‟s powers. All she could do was to persuade the persons
within that organisation who did have authority to exercise it. She had no power to
require them to do so. Because the Programme had no control over funding, if a
person or entity was failing to perform, the sanction of denying payment was
unavailable. Secondly, the extent to which the organisation could act depended upon
the scope of the authority it had over the failing person or entity. In its submissions to
the Committee the Ministry said that when the national co-ordinator was located
within the Department or Ministry of Health “she had access to the full range of
powers open to the Ministry, including regulatory advice to the Minister and
contracting mechanisms.” The difficulty the Committee has with this submission is
that the history of the Programme shows that these extensive powers were never used.
The contracts the Ministry had with the regional health authorities from 1993 did not
result in TELARC accreditation being made compulsory until 1996/97; prior to that
the power the Department had to impose TELARC accreditation by regulations was
never exercised.
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6.23 The Ministry also submits that the national co-ordinator had to operate within the
framework of the Department/Ministry‟s management structure and that as a third tier
manager her ability to advance issues depended upon her ability to identify them,
make a case for action and influence colleagues. In the Committee‟s view the
Programme needs to be managed by someone who has the authority and the means
available to do whatever needs to be done. The Programme should not have to depend
upon a co-ordinator‟s ability to plead a case for action. Secondly, this highlights the
need for a medically qualified manager. Such a person would have been in a better
position to outline to more senior persons in the Department or Ministry the dangers of
inaction.
6.24 The national co-ordinator was expected to liase with advisory groups on various
aspects of the Programme. Over the years these groups included: the Expert Group,
the Cytology Advisory Liaison Committee, the Cervical Screening Advisory
Committee and the Cervical Screening Liaison Advisory Group. None of these
advisory groups had any power to require actions to be taken or not to be taken.
Professor Skegg outlined the difficulties the advisory groups faced in this way.
“… The people who are on the advisory committees are actually not meeting
with the people making the decisions [within the Ministry], they are advising
co-ordinators who then have to lobby within the Ministry of Health for
something to be done.”
6.25 Apart from working with the advisory groups, she was also required to establish a
close working relationship between herself and the regional Programme managers in
the area health boards and the Maori regional co-ordinators. Because the area health
board managers were not Department of Health employees and there were no direct
lines of accountability between the area health board Programme managers and the
national co-ordinator, she could do nothing to force them to act or to desist from acting
in a way which was detrimental to the Programme. If her powers of persuasion failed
to achieve her intentions there was little else she could do. If others chose not to listen
to her she could inform the manager of the unit of the Department within which the
office of national co-ordinator had been placed. However, there was little that the
national co-ordinator‟s unit manager could have done. For example when the
Wellington Area Health Board refused to release information from its screening
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register, the Department was forced to prepare the Programme‟s first statistical report
without the Wellington data.
6.26 The Department of Health contracted with area health boards to carry out various
health services. The control the Department had over area health boards was through
these contracts. It seems to the Committee that any concerns the national co-ordinator
had, about the performance of area health boards, could only have been authoritatively
addressed through these contracts. There is no evidence that this ever occurred.
Because so much of the Programme was actually delivered by persons who were not
Department of Health employees, there was little, if anything, that anyone in the
Department could do if these areas were failing. For example no one in the
Department had the power to hire and fire employees of the area health boards.
6.27 However, the Department did have direct control over some aspects of the
Programme‟s delivery. For example it was responsible for paying laboratories for
their diagnostic services. But, when the health system was restructured in July 1993
even this degree of control was lost. From then on the delivery of services for the
Programme was through regional health authorities. Hence the restructuring
exacerbated the fragmentation of the Programme‟s leadership structure. Ms Glackin
conceded that under the health service structure that prevailed from 1993 until 1998
the Ministry could not directly control the delivery of the National Cervical Screening
Programme. This was because the regional health authorities assumed the role of
funding the providers for the Programme:
“Q Just to follow on from one of your answers before, if the Ministry
couldn‟t influence the funding to providers is it fair to conclude that the
Ministry had no way to directly control the delivery of the Cervical
Screening Programme?
A That is correct.”
The Ministry was left with only an indirect means of controlling the Programme‟s
delivery through its contracts with the regional health authorities. However, as these
contracts were generic they did not provide sufficient authority to allow the Ministry
to exercise any significant influence over providers for the Programme. An example is
the provision the funding agreements made for TELARC accreditation during the time
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Dr Bottrill was practising. Ms Glackin told the Committee that the Ministry
monitored the performance of regional health authorities through the formal funding
agreements it had with these entities. Clearly this monitoring was based upon an
examination of whether or not the regional health authorities were meeting their
performance targets. Because there were few performance targets in these agreements
that related to the Programme this form of monitoring was not going to detect any
defects in performance .
6.28 The tasks and responsibilities of the Programme did not change under the restructured
health system, but how they were delivered did change.
“Q Is it correct to say that the tasks and responsibilities of the
Programme hadn‟t changed, how they were being purchased and delivered
changed, and the job description of the national co-ordinator had changed?
Would it be fair to say the context of all these changes, they still had to be
delivered and the only way to ensure that they would be delivered was for
them to be contracted and agreed to by the regional health authorities?
A I believe yes that is generally so, and I think the comment was made
earlier that now in fact the Programme and health funding authority is
perhaps close to being delivered in the way that was envisaged in 1989 where
the functions are the responsibility of one manager in the Health Funding
Authority now, including the Register.”
6.29 Between 1993 and 1998 the split in responsibilities between the Ministry and the
regional health authorities did not work well for the Programme. There was no overall
body which had the responsibility for, and the power to supervise, the running of the
entire Programme. It was not until 1998 when the Programme passed to the Health
Funding Authority that full responsibility and power to manage the entire Programme
became vested in one entity. Even then some divided responsibilities still remained;
the responsibility for evaluating the Programme remained with the Ministry. Ms
Glackin accepted that the division of responsibilities was detrimental for the
Programme
“Q Does that mean that at the present time the Health Funding
Authority has entire responsibility and power to manage the entire
Programme?
A Except for the monitoring of its contracts the Ministry‟s monitoring
of the Health Funding Authority and also the evaluation of the Programme,
that contract has remained with the Ministry of Health. The Ministry also, as
I said earlier, collects outcome data which it does at part of its health status
monitoring nationally.
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Q In the years between 92 and 96 clearly the management of the entire
Programme was split between a number of bodies, each of whom were
responsible only for components of the Programme, is that correct?
A National co-ordination and the Register were the responsibility of
the Ministry, as was overall policy advice, but the actual purchase of services
related to the Programme was the responsibility of regional health
authorities.
Q Does that mean that overall the Programme was split between the
Ministry and the regional health authorities?
A Certainly, that‟s what‟s dealt with in the review of accountabilities.
It talks about the fact that it is considered the regional health authorities saw
themselves as purchasing components of a Programme, rather than a
Programme itself.
Q Do you think given your experience in the position you hold now in
the Ministry that this split in responsibility had any impact on how well the
Programme ran as a whole?
A In my brief I give an example of a problem with the Auckland
Cervical Screening Register which I believe illustrates the issues that arose
for a regional health authority when they considered that they did not have
full responsibility for the Programme.
Q So can the Committee conclude from that that the split in
responsibility had a detrimental impact in the overall running of the Cervical
Screening Programme?
A That is the view that the Ministry put to the Associate Minister in
1996. The organisational structure meant that there was little that the
Ministry could do to remedy any failures in the Programme”
6.30 After the health restructuring in 1993, all that the national co-ordinator could do was
either exercise persuasive powers on the regional health authority or fall back on the
powers available to the Ministry of Health under its funding agreements with regional
health authorities. However, the latter course of action would only have been of
assistance if the funding agreements contained specific contractual terms relating to
the Programme. As the funding agreements did not, there was little that the national
co-ordinator could do here, other than whenever a funding agreement was in the
process of being re-negotiated, attempt to influence the Ministry of Health negotiators
to include provisions relating to the Programme.
6.31 There were some lengthy periods when the Programme was without a co-ordinator.
The first co-ordinator, Gillian Grew, was appointed in June 1990 and remained in the
position until July 1992. When she resigned in July 1992 the position was vacant until
January 1993 when Sue Dahl was appointed, and she remained in the position until
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September 1994. From September 1994 until June 1996, Teenah Handiside was the
national co-ordinator. From June 1996 until December 1996 the position was vacant.
In December 1996 Di Best was appointed national co-ordinator until April 1998 when
the position was transferred to the Health Funding Authority.
6.32 Both the area health board and regional health authority systems of health service
delivery compromised the Programme‟s effectiveness. Ms Glackin agreed that it
would have been easier to implement the Programme using a single entity with
someone in a chief-executive role which had sole responsibility for developing and
implementing the Programme. She also agreed that under the regional health system
the result for the Programme was that there were a: “plethora of bodies involved in
running the Programme”.
6.33 The national co-ordinator‟s lack of medical qualifications may have resulted in a
failure to appreciate fully the implications of laboratories not being accredited.
Ms Dahl told the Committee that when she was national co-ordinator it did not
concern her that some laboratories were not accredited. She was not aware of the
repercussions which could result from this:
CHAIR: Well as the national co-ordinator were you not concerned that laboratories that were
just starting up, and couldn't reach the quality of standard to get TELARC accreditation
straight off, were able to read cytology for the screening programme?
MS DAHL: I wasn‟t concerned, no, because I had nothing to make me feel concerned. I
was being assured by the committee and the people who were expert in that field that this
process was occurring and I was never alerted to there being a major danger related to it.
CHAIR: Well, could this perhaps be an example of a situation where you as the employee
within the Ministry didn't have sufficient knowledge yourself to realise that if laboratories were
being run without any accreditation and without any standards being imposed upon them for
the reading of smear tests for the screening programme that there was a greater likelihood of
under-reporting than if those laboratories were having to perform according to specified
standards and they were accredited laboratories?
MS DAHL: My understanding was that laboratories did have processes – QA processes;
they did have accreditation processes in place. They had peer review processes. They were
working in a professional manner. I visited a variety of laboratories, at the time I was the
national co-ordinator, and I spoke to a variety of pathologists and people who were reading
smears. I also had a close working relationship with Dr Teague and the committee, and it may
have been that I did have a lack of technical knowledge in terms of the absolute specifics of
what should be occurring in a laboratory, but I was not advised in any way of the repercussions
that could have occurred in terms of why we‟re here now.
CHAIR: But that‟s the point. A medical person might well have realised the repercussions,
they may not have needed to be advised of what the repercussions would be.
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MS DAHL: With hindsight that may have been the case, however I was working with a
group of 6 to 8 professional people on that committee, and it was their role to advise me on
issues relating to laboratories, and I felt confident that I had that expert advice at my fingertips
when required.
CHAIR: Did you ever contemplate doing an audit of all laboratories for the purposes of
finding out whether they were TELARC accredited, whether they ran quality assurance
programmes, internal or external; whether they had peer review in place?
MS DAHL: No, I didn‟t.
Other evidence from Ms Dahl also confirmed for the Committee that a non medical
person in the role of national co-ordinator may not realise when to press for action:
“Q: You seem to be saying that CALC wasn‟t concerned about it, but at what point in time
would you, as the Ministry official, consider saying, “well, whatever they say, this has been
going on for too long, something has to be done about this”, and so go off and speak to
someone within the Ministry about getting it done?
MS DAHL: Well, that‟s a good question, ma'am. CALC was my main adviser. I did not
take it further, other than trying to get it in the funding agreement.
Q:: Did you not become, yourself, frustrated at times with the way – looking at it from your
perspective where you say CALC kept saying all the time, “it‟s going to happen, it‟s going to
happen” but it hadn't completely happened, did you ever get frustrated by that and think “what
can be done to make it happen”?
MS DAHL: I don‟t recall becoming frustrated specifically with that. I felt that progress was
being made and that we had put into place meetings and whatever to make that happen.
Meanwhile, I was also had other workload, there were other priorities at the time which
appeared to be equally pressing.
Q:: Had anyone brought home to you at the time, or was there any appreciation at the time of
how dependent on quality performance from laboratories the programme was, in the sense that
if there was under-reporting it would let the programme down?
MS DAHL: There were discussions about under-reporting. At the time we were also
looking to get histology results onto the Register, and that was a major priority in terms of
what that would enable us to do in terms of quality checking.
6.34 In the Committee‟s view a medically qualified manager would have realised, long
before 1996, that something needed to be done to introduce compulsory accreditation.
Furthermore, a medically qualified person with sufficient authority to ensure
accreditation was compulsory would have made sure it happened. The need for good
operational management with a “public health perspective” was recognised in the
Cervical Screening Advisory Committee‟s Report of 1994: Monitoring And
Evaluation Of The National Cervical Screening Programme: The First Three
Establishment Years. Although this is described as a monitoring and evaluation
report it does not present an evaluation of the Programme‟s effectiveness. It instead
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analyses what has actually occurred within the Programme since its beginning. This
report stated that the lack of appropriate staff with appropriate expertise in the fields of
public health and epidemiology was a barrier to monitoring and evaluation of the
Programme. The report recommended the use of salaried appointments rather than
advisory groups to carry out tasks of monitoring, compiling performance measures and
identifying concerns about the Programme when they arose.
6.35 Another example of the need for a medically qualified manager is in relation to the
original design of the screening register. The Straton Report was critical of the
paucity of medical input into its design. This meant that, in the beginning, there was a
failure to recognise the importance of the register as a database and an epidemiological
tool. Dr Straton also considered that there needed to be one person who had sole
responsibility for the screening register; she envisaged this role being separate from
that of the national co-ordinator:
“It is clear that the implementation of the cervical screening register nation
wide is an enormously complex task requiring liaison and consultation with
many different groups and the making of many key decisions with respect to
the functioning of the area health board registers. Some of the problems with
the register seemed to relate to the fact that too much responsibility has
rested on the computer consultants, especially recently, and there has not
been enough consistent input to decision making from a person with
knowledge of the realities of medical practice, as well as the functional
requirements of the system. The loss of expertise associated with the
turnover of experienced health professional staff in the Department of Health
has exacerbated the situation, but I believe that the register has mainly
suffered through not having a single person responsible for it.”
6.36 One result of the lack of leadership was the undue emphasis placed upon consultation,
facilitation and consensus. Government agencies have legal obligations to consult.
However, these obligations require the agency to provide persons who are affected by
any proposal with the opportunity to comment on it before it is implemented. The
agency must keep an open mind and be prepared to modify its proposal as a result of
the consultation but ultimately the power of decision remains with the agency.
Consultation does not require a negotiated result to be achieved. The consultation
relating to the Programme was long and protracted. The Committee was advised that
this was due to the ownership of the Programme, which women and women‟s groups
felt that they had.
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MS JANES: We've seen that consultation seems to take anywhere from 2 years on. Is there
any way that some of these things can be consulted on more rapidly for the advantage of the
programme?
MS DAHL: I‟d like to make a comment about consultation in that consultation was
considered exceedingly important with this programme. The women who had been involved,
or a lot of women‟s groups had a lot of ownership over the Cervical Screening Programme and
it was considered to be really important that they were fully consulted. Therefore I believe the
consultation process probably took longer than they would now on other policy issues.
MS GLACKIN: Could I just comment on that as well. I think this is illustrated by the fact
that in 1996, when the Ministry completed what from our perspective was a relatively straight
forward review of accountabilities with the intention to consult on the implementation of that
review, there was a great deal of concern and in fact that resulted in Katherine O‟Regan
expressing very clearly her wishes that there be extensive consultation on that issue. And I
think that in dealing with the Cervical Screening Programme the Ministry has always been
very conscious of the degree of interest and the degree of ownership which women feel for the
programme, presumably, today. Although I can't comment on that directly.
CHAIR: Do you think that concern and this need for women ownership of the programme
and the high expectations upon you to consult so much with so many diverse groups has
actually hindered the effective development and delivery of the programme because it‟s
resulted in such long delays and consultation?
MS GREW: I think it‟s an advantage and a disadvantage. The disadvantage obviously is the
time factor involved in consultation. The advantage is that if you do consult with population
groups you tend to get better buy-in to changes or ways of co-operating with changes.
6.37 The recognition of women and women‟s groups is laudable. However, it must not be
forgotten that a screening programme is a medical programme. If its medical requisites
are tinkered with for non-medical reasons a screening programme will not function
effectively. For example opt-on registers were originally chosen to give women the
power to choose whether or not they enrolled on the Registers. While this approach
gave women the opportunity to exercise their power of choice actively, it rendered the
Register ineffective for the purpose of providing a database for monitoring the
Programme. Opt-off registers do not empower women as directly as opt-on registers
do. But they are more effective because most women do not exercise their choice to
opt-off, and so there are now sufficient numbers on the Register to make it a useful
data base. Professor Skegg warned of this problem in his article How Not To Organise
A Cervical Screening Programme, however his concerns were not heeded. Ultimately
something which was done to benefit women was actually detrimental to them. Those
who elected to enrol on the opt-on Registers were participating in a handicapped
Programme that could not yield data suitable for evaluation:
MS GLACKIN: I would, but I should make the comment that
from a technical perspective there are issues with having,
apparently, sufficient numbers of women enrolled and to make the
evaluation feasible. One of the issues with this programme is that
until after opt-off in 1993 we had quite small numbers. So I
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understand there were some technical issues about when the
evaluation could be done.
6.38 The Committee has seen from a Ministry memorandum of April 1996 that one of the
features of the National Cervical Screening Programme is consumer ownership. The
memorandum states :
“The current structure and configuration of the Programme cannot be
separate from its origins, in the context of the inquiry into cervical cancer
treatment at National Women‟s Hospital. The Programme was seen as an
attempt to redress some of the harm done by those events. It has attracted,
and continues to attract, close scrutiny from the women‟s lobby groups. The
philosophy of the Programme has always focussed strongly on the rights of
women and protection of their interests.”
6.39 The Committee freely supports the sentiments set out in this paragraph, however the
medical character of a screening programme must not be overlooked. To do so is to
risk the effectiveness of a screening programme. For this reason the Committee is
sure that most women would be more concerned to ensure that the National Cervical
Screening Programme worked effectively and materially helped to reduce the
incidence of cervical cancer in New Zealand than they would be with exercising rights
of ownership of the Programme. Certainly the evidence the Committee has heard
from the various consumer groups which appeared before it is consistent with this
view.
6.40 The Committee has concluded that from the time of the Programme‟s design, through
to its implementation and its operation up to 1998 it has lacked strong leadership.
Furthermore this lack of leadership has prevented it from recognising and remedying
the systemic problems which the Committee considers were factors that are likely to
have contributed to the unacceptable under-reporting at Gisborne. Everyone
associated with this Programme has known of the importance of quality assurance and
TELARC accreditation; monitoring and evaluation of the Programme; and having
measurable performance standards and reliable data. These are the essential features
of an effective screening register and yet during the years that Dr Bottrill was
practising no one was able to ensure that these important components were in place
from an early stage. Instead the Programme began with a sub-optimal registration
system which had to be reconfigured; it has never been comprehensively monitored
and evaluated; it took until late 1996/early 1997 before TELARC accreditation
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became compulsory even though that had been envisaged as being in place from 1993;
there are still problems with gaining access to reliable data and it is only since the
Programme shifted to the Health Funding Authority in 1998 that steps have been taken
to implement measurable performance standards. The Committee considers that had
the Programme been subject to strong leadership which had the necessary authority to
ensure the Programme was well designed and well implemented and which could
initiate remedial action quickly when it was needed, those systemic problems which
have been identified as factors that are likely to have led to under-reporting would
either have not occurred, or if they did, they would have been cured much earlier on in
the Programme.
Failure to Follow the Advice of Various Experts on the Programme
6.41 There appears to have been a consistent failure to follow the advice of experts. This
was in relation to how the Programme was established and certain essential features
such as monitoring and evaluation and laboratory accreditation. This indicates a
systemic deficiency in the Programme.
Failure To Accept Expert Advice On The Need For Monitoring And Evaluation
6.42 Ms Glackin accepted that from 1990 onwards there was very clear advice on the
importance of evaluation for the Programme.
“Q I want to go back to Stratton please … on page 62 and 63 she
included a section on evaluation, monitoring and research and said that a
major deficiency so far has been the failure to incorporate any formal
evaluation into any of the pilot projects or any other aspects of the
Programme. Evaluation of the pilot community projects is now being
planned, but the evaluation should be planned right from the outset. So
again, there was very clear advice from at least 1990 onwards of the
importance of evaluation wasn‟t there?
A Yes, although the specific reference is to the need to start to collect
data.
Q Yes, but in the general context of the importance of evaluations.
A Yes. That is true.”
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Also, the expert group in its report in 1990 had emphasised the importance of
evaluation :
“Q This is an important section on evaluation and monitoring and in
14.1.2 they stress that no single indicator, except perhaps a mortality rate,
exists to measure good performance. Total picture can only be developed by
monitoring all aspects of the Programme and under 14.2.4 where they talked
about aspects of the Programme requiring evaluation next page fourth point
quality of smear reading, it was clearly identified as a matter for evaluation
wasn‟t it?
A Yes.”
Ms Glackin was then taken through reports from the Cervical Screening Advisory
Committee 1990 and 1991 which also emphasised the importance of evaluation for the
Programme.
“Q So there was a very clear emphasis wasn‟t there from Cervical
Screening Advisory Committee from the beginning on comprehensive
evaluation?
A Yes, that is correct.”
6.43 In addition in 1990 the Straton Report had emphasised the need to ensure the
appropriate epidemiological information was available to allow monitoring and
evaluation to be undertaken. Dr Straton recommended that a small working party
should be established, including an epidemiologist and a biostatistician, to define the
data required for monitoring the Programme and to determine ways of extracting such
data from the database. She noted that epidemiological information for monitoring
was not routinely available, and that there was no provision in the specifications of the
Registers for the generation of tables. She said that this question had apparently not
been considered; partly because the need for these types of reports had not been
considered and partly because of failure to obtain agreement about what information
was needed. She described a major deficiency of the Programme when she saw it in
1990 as being a failure to incorporate any formal evaluation into any of the pilot
projects or any other aspects of the Programme. She said evaluation of pilot
community projects was being planned, but the evaluation should be planned right
from the outset so that the appropriate data can be gathered. In the absence of any
guidelines about the data required, those establishing the pilot projects did not know
what was needed. She noted that the absence of any formal evaluation of the pilot
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projects had limited to some extent what could be learnt from them. She noted that
careful thought needed to be given to the data required for monitoring, and how to
extract it from the register on a routine basis. She said that as well as ongoing
monitoring of the Programme through data on the register, there was a need for
evaluation studies which were formative in nature, and aimed at improving the various
aspects of the national programme. She recommended that steps be taken to
incorporate an evaluation component into the planning of future cervical screening
projects, including the delivery of services and the establishment of the cervical
screening register and further area health boards with funds being specifically
earmarked for evaluation. She said ideally such evaluation should be co-ordinated
nationally.
6.44 The advice and recommendations made in the Cervical Screening Advisory
Committee‟s Report of 1994 titled Monitoring And Evaluation Of The National
Cervical Screening Programme: The First Three Establishment Years identified the
need for strong leadership, the need for a separate operational unit for the Programme
within the Ministry (which by that time had primarily a policy-making role), the need
for routine monitoring and evaluation including annual statistical reports and regular
feedback to smear takers and laboratories regarding quality of performance.
6.45 Nevertheless, no comprehensive monitoring and evaluation exercise has been carried
out. Nor did the Programme, during the time that Dr Bottrill was in practice, have any
of the tools needed for monitoring and evaluation in place. This continued up until
2000. At that time the Health Funding Authority which had gained responsibility for
the Programme in 1998 began to put in place the essential requisites to allow effective
monitoring and evaluation to occur. Before then any monitoring and evaluation
exercises which did occur related to other aspects of the Programme such as numbers
of women enrolled. Laboratory performance in reading cervical cytology was never
monitored or evaluated. Annual statistical reports were never produced and
throughout the time Dr Bottrill was in practice laboratories did not receive from the
Programme feedback on the quality of their smear reading.
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The Committee was told by Dr Cox that he resigned from the Cervical Screening
Advisory Committee because the failure to follow advice made him feel professionally
unsafe:
“Q Dr Cox has said that he ultimately resigned from CSAC
because he considered that he was professionally unsafe because
CSAC had made, in his view, a number of recommendations; it
was responsible for advising on the monitoring and evaluation of the
programme. He had got to the point where he was concerned that a
circumstance such as has happened in Gisborne would occur, and he
considered himself professionally unsafe. Do you have any
comment on that?
MS DAHL: I will make a comment on that. At the time that I
was working with the CSAC committee we worked very hard to
actually establish some specific evaluation criteria. We reviewed
what had been done to date, what hadn't been done, where the gaps
were, and looked forward in terms of what should happen next. At
the period that I was there I don‟t think that Dr Cox had expressed
those views. He may have been frustrated by some of the
departmental type processes that had to be gone through, but I never
heard him express anything as explicit as that.”
The Ministry‟s counsel did not cross-examine Dr Cox on this issue and so the
Committee is unaware of what his response would have been to Ms Dahl‟s evidence
on this point. That is unfortunate, as cross-examination is the best means of resolving
disputed evidence. Even so, the impression the Committee gained of Dr Cox, when he
gave evidence, was that he was a truthful witness. Whether or not he expressed his
feelings to the Ministry officials at the time he resigned does not mean he did not have
such feelings. The Committee accepts his evidence.
6.46 Ms Dahl was then referred to a Health Funding Authority memorandum of 1999
headed Public Health Operation Group – Non-discretionary Project. The name of the
project was National Cervical Screening Programme and the project‟s classification
was, “inability to perform core business”. The memorandum noted that since the
Programme was established there had been “no national quality standards developed,
little monitoring or evaluation carried out and no strategic review of programme
configuration or direction”. It also noted that the Programme did not have adequate
procedures and structures in place to ensure the safety of women. It drew on the
potential under-reporting in Gisborne to support this view. The memorandum stated
that “the ability of the situation to develop to the extent that it had can be largely
attributed to the lack of quality systems and monitoring of the Programme.” The
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memorandum went on to acknowledge: that there had been ongoing calls for
monitoring and evaluation of the Programme “since its inception in 1991 by various
groups including the Cervical Screening Liaison Advisory Group, programme
providers and women‟s health groups; secondly that the Programme was never set up
with any ongoing monitoring or evaluation in place, and as such no budget was
transferred to the Health Funding Authority from the Ministry of Health for this
purpose”. The memo then referred to the independent evaluation being carried out by
the Otago team and referred to correspondence between the Chief Executive of the
Health Funding Authority and the Ministry of Health in which the Health Funding
Authority had written that it was primarily concerned in establishing ongoing quality
mechanisms for the National Cervical Screening Programme. Ms Dahl‟s comment on
the memorandum was that it seemed harsh:
“MS DAHL: I think it‟s a very harsh interpretation, the way it‟s put I believe it‟s very harsh.
I believe that every endeavour was made in the period that I was there to actually assess what
had been done. There had been process evaluations, small evaluations done. There‟d been
small monitoring reports, there‟d been statistical reports, there'd been sort of a lot of ad-
hockery, and so the focus when I was there was to try and move from that into some systematic
way of actually monitoring and evaluating the programme. My expectation would have been
that that would have occurred.”
6.47 This memorandum initiated the development of detailed policy and operational
documents for the Programme by the Health Funding Authority including quantitative
performance indicators and other mechanisms to ensure good quality control. The
memorandum outlined the risks of not carrying out this project. One of the risks in not
ensuring good quality control through monitoring and evaluation was said to be the
likelihood that further women will develop invasive cervical cancer because of a lack
of quality standards and monitoring in place, with the attendant organisational costs of
investigating and managing each of these incidents. The memorandum gives a good
indication of the views of the Health Funding Authority at that time and the concerns
it had over the Programme‟s operation. It shows how that entity understood and
applied expert advice on screening programmes, and its view on the operation of the
New Zealand Cervical Screening Programme. The memorandum confirms for the
Committee that the earlier advice of experts on the need for monitoring and evaluation
of the Programme‟s performance was correct and ought to have been heeded.
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Failure To Accept Expert Advice On The Need For Laboratory Accreditation
6.48 The evidence the Committee heard from Dr Teague, who was a member of the
Cytology Liaison Advisory Committee, was that this committee had regularly advised
the Department and the Ministry of Health on the need for laboratories to be TELARC
accredited. His evidence was that this committee had confidently expected TELARC
accreditation to be compulsory by 1993 and that accreditation could be enforced by
withholding payment from unaccredited laboratories. Ms Dahl accepted that when she
was national co-ordinator the Cytology Liaison Advisory Committee had advised her
that laboratories should be working towards TELARC accreditation and that this was
occurring.
6.49 From the evidence which the Committee has seen it is clear that in the early stages of
the Programme the advice from the various other experts (Dr Straton, Ministerial
Review Committee and Experts Group) was that laboratories should be accredited
with an independent quality control authority. Up to 1996 the advice was not followed
in the sense that the Department and subsequently the Ministry failed to put in place a
fail-safe mechanism which required laboratories to be accredited. After 1996 the
Ministry did include in the Policy document a requirement that laboratories be
accredited and regional health authorities then began the process of including this
requirement in their agreements with the laboratories.
Failure To Follow Expert Advice On The Need To Have All Parts Of A Screening
Programme In Place From The Outset
6.50 The Programme‟s design appears to have been influenced by lay persons, who seem
not to have recognised that a screening programme has certain essential requirements,
and that their absence will jeopardise the programme‟s effectiveness. The expert
advice at the time the Programme was being established was that all parts of a
screening programme needed to be in place from the outset. This advice was not
followed. During the Programme‟s design phase there was a misplaced focus on
increasing the number of women having smear tests taken; this was at the expense of
other parts of the Programme. This misplaced focus created an imbalance between
smear taking and other essential parts of the Programme.
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6.51 The emphasis on smear taking appears to have resulted from a political concern that
the Programme‟s establishment was not occurring in a timely fashion. This political
concern caused the Minister of Health, on 25 August 1989, to send a memorandum to
the Director General of Health outlining her concern about the slow pace at which the
Programme was being set up. Unfortunately, the memorandum had two detrimental
results : it imposed time pressures on officials which resulted in unrealistic deadlines;
and secondly it caused a shift in focus away from a balanced screening programme to
one which placed an emphasis on increasing the number of women having smear tests
taken. This shift in emphasis was at the expense of other parts of the Programme.
6.52 The memorandum said :
“In my view the current state of misinformation and concern among those
groups who have an interest in the success of this Programme clearly shows
that the Department has not been successful in developing a Programme
which has the support of the community and can feasibly be put into
operation by the end of the year.
There is widespread concern that there has been too much emphasis placed
on the development of the national register and the computing system
necessary to operate a register and recall system, at the expense of action on
developing smear-taking programmes. I share this concern.
My objective is to use the money made available by Government to raise the
awareness of the necessity for smears among those women not currently
being screened, and to encourage all women to have regular smears. The
importance of the register and ensuring all women are enrolled should
probably be secondary to that.”(emphasis added)
The memorandum continued by stating that the Minister wanted a ministerial review
team set up to look at the progress of the Programme to date, and to recommend the
appropriate course of action and appropriate allocation of available funds:
“It should not be assumed that the funding split between computing,
administration costs and smear benefits is in any sense fixed. I believe it is
likely that we should be spending more of the money in paying for smears
and ensuring that those groups not currently being smeared are provided with
easy access to smear takers.” (Emphasis added)
She concluded her memorandum by stating :
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“I am not committed to launching a national register by the end of this year.
I am committed to ensuring that the proportion of women having smears
increases over the year and that we make steady progress towards a co-
ordinated national cervical screening programme.”(emphasis added)
6.53 The Minister‟s concern to increase the momentum of establishing the Programme is
understandable. The lack of strong leadership was having a detrimental effect on the
Programme‟s establishment. One of the reasons given for the delays was poor
communication. This is understandable given the absence of a chief-executive with
the necessary authority to advance the Programme‟s establishment. After the
Cartwright Report there would have been immense public pressure to establish a
cervical screening programme. The requisites for a screening programme to be fully
effective are not easily communicated to lay persons and so there may have been
difficulties in communicating this information to the public. The Committee may not
have heard all the evidence it would have liked to receive on this point. The passage
of time has meant that the Committee has had to rely upon whatever documentary
evidence can still be located and on witnesses‟ memories. The Committee can
understand that a Minister faced with this predicament would respond by putting
pressure on officials to have something in place within an early time frame. However,
the decision to place the emphasis on increasing the number of women having smears
taken and the continued use of advisory groups was not ultimately helpful.
6.54 There is little authoritative material to support giving priority to increasing the number
of women having smears taken at the expense of other components of the Programme.
The only support the Committee is aware of comes from the Azimuth Report which
stated that smear taking is the key factor affecting the success of a screening
programme:
“It must be recognised that smear taking is the key factor affecting the
success of a screening programme. The delivery of the screening service
must meet the needs of New Zealand women.”
It also stated:
“This investigation has shown that while there are medical issues involved in
the establishment of a cervical screening programme it is primarily a
management and administration problem and should be tackled as such. The
perception is that medical details have dominated to date and contributed to
the slow progress.”
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The Azimuth Report was written by a firm of computer consultants who were hired to
develop the computerised screening register. Apart from this report there is no other
material before the Committee which supports placing an emphasis on smear taking
and to treat other aspects of the Programme, such as a screening register and
enrolment of women, as secondary. Perhaps these comments caused the Department
officials to begin to doubt the advice being given from medical experts. There is no
direct evidence one way or the other. However, the issue is important because unless
the lessons to be learned from the failure to accept expert advice are understood,
similar mistakes can still be made.
6.55 The Committee considers that there was no point in encouraging women to have
smear tests taken when their smear tests were being read at laboratories whose
performance was accepted on trust and which may have been performing
inadequately. This imbalance was subsequently recognised by Dr Straton in her
report.
“ High quality laboratory services are a vital link in the establishment of an
effective screening programme, yet this aspect of the programme seems to
have received much less attention in New Zealand than the recruitment of
women to be screened. There is no point in putting a great deal of effort in
encouraging women to be screened if the quality of the screening service is
inadequate and there are long delays in receiving results.” (emphasis added)
6.56 The Straton Report, which was prepared in 1990 noted that there were aspects of
laboratory services which needed attention. These included accreditation, quality
control, training of cytoscreeners, coding of results and the interface between the
laboratories and the registers. She said there was a concern that there had been
insufficient consultation and inadequate assessment of the resources needed to provide
proper screening services at laboratory level.
6.57 The Ministerial Review Committee (1989) recognised the need to have all parts of the
Programme in place. One of its major conclusions was that :
“Attention should not be focused on any particular aspect of the Programme.
For a cervical screening programme to be successful all aspects must be
developed simultaneously as each is an integral part of achieving success.”
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Nevertheless, the Programme‟s design and development from November 1989
onwards is not consistent with that recommendation being adopted. The Ministerial
Review Committee had recognised the importance of correlating histology with
cytology on the register and had urged that it be given immediate attention. However,
the software for the 14 stand-alone registers did not allow for this. Nothing was done
to ensure laboratory performance was adequate and nothing was done to ensure that
monitoring and evaluation could take place.
6.58 The Ministerial Review Committee referred to such things as minimum numbers of
smears to be read at laboratories, correlation of histology with cytology, training of
cytologists, it recommended that a set of minimum standards of competency for
laboratories and smear readers should be developed, and that performance indicators
that would enable compliance with these guidelines to be assessed, should also be
defined. It even suggested performance indicators in its report. However, none of
these components of the Programme were in place when it began.
6.59 The decision to use opt-on registers was not supported by expert advice. In its
submission to the Committee the Ministry describes the use of opt-on registers as
occurring almost by default. The submission states;
“ The opt-on register decision had not been made at this stage [ approximately 1988] Rather a
refusal to promote the necessary legislation for an opt-off Register was (sic) by the Minister
after the Ministerial Review Committee and the Expert Group had reported in 1990.
In responding to criticism from other parties in the inquiry regarding the use of 14
stand-alone registers and the original decision to exclude histology from the register
the submission says that the source of these decisions cannot now be traced:
“The decisions to exclude histology from the initial register and to set up 14 separate registers
were givens at an early stage. It is not known whether these decisions were made at the
departmental or ministerial level, but we do know the very tight timeframes imposed by
respective Ministers to the Programme.”
6.60 The Ministry in its submission emphasised the tight timeframes which were placed on
establishing aspects of the Programme. It refers to Ms Sandra Coney‟s evidence that
the Ministerial Review Committee were convinced by the Department that
significantly delaying the start of the Programme was not acceptable. The Ministry in
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its submission says that this was the view of the Minister, and that while she was not
committed to launching the Programme on 30 November 1989 as originally planned
she wanted to be able to show continued progress.
6.61 The Ministry rejects the submissions of other parties to the Inquiry that the
Government implemented the Programme with undue haste, and against the advice of
the expert group. The Ministry submits that both the Ministerial Review Committee
and the expert group recommend that the Programme not be delayed until Register
issues were resolved and the evaluation of pilot programmes completed.
6.62 The Committee has read both the reports of the Ministerial Review Committee and the
expert group. Its impression of these reports is that in principle both advisory groups
considered that it was important to have all the components of a screening programme
in place from the beginning. Their reports reveal an awareness of strong pressure to
advance the Programme‟s establishment. Their willingness to go along with the
Programme being established in a piecemeal fashion seems to the Committee to be
more shaped by a pragmatic realisation of what was going to be achievable, rather
than by what they considered to be the best approach.
6.63 The manner in which the Programme was established may have worked if the initial
components which were in place had been appropriate, and if the foundation of
existing health services on which the Programme was to be built were sound and had
been thoroughly checked out. The overseas literature recommends that when a
programme is going to be built upon existing services they should first be fully
evaluated. A programme that is built upon existing services will be inherently flawed
if the services themselves have flaws.
6.64 In respect of the New Zealand Cervical Screening Programme there were two
problems which made its piecemeal establishment more detrimental to the Programme
than it might otherwise have been. The first was that the components that were
initially put in place were not appropriate. A system of 14 stand-alone opt-on registers
was unworkable. The Programme could never be an effective cervical screening
programme while set up in this way. Secondly, the existing health services upon
which the Programme was based were not evaluated, and therefore the quality of their
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performance was unknown. An important component of the existing services was
laboratories. They were not subject to any quality control or accreditation processes
and their work performance had never been assessed. Therefore, when the Programme
was established using existing services, nothing was known about the performance
quality of the laboratories. Ideally, if existing services are going to be used, they
should be thoroughly evaluated, and any deficiencies in them corrected before the
Programme begins. The Department of Health did send a team of persons around to
look at laboratories and evaluations were carried out of the various pilot cervical
screening programmes which were tried in various regions, however, none of these
evaluation studies were designed to detect poorly performing laboratories. There was
never any critical evaluation of the quality of laboratory performance before the
Programme began.
6.65 The need for a full evaluation of the existing services that will be used in a new
screening programme, which critically assesses the quality of their performance is
clearly stated in the authoritative literature the Committee has read on establishing
cervical screening programmes. The outcome for the National Cervical Screening
Programme was that its piecemeal establishment was built on a shaky foundation, and
some of its initial components ultimately had to be replaced. This meant that those
persons charged with the responsibility for implementing the Programme were faced
with a task whereby they had to work towards developing the later stages of the
Programme, while at the same time having to redo the first stage work.
6.66 Thus by 1993 it had become clear to the Department of Health that the Programme
which was in place needed to be redesigned. The screening registers needed to change
from opt-on to opt-off and the fourteen stand-alone registers in the area health board
regions needed to be combined into a single national database which allowed histology
to be correlated with cytology. In the Committee‟s view there is no reason why these
things could not have been put in place from the outset. The expert advice did not
support the Programme‟s original design.
6.67 It seems to the Committee that anxiety in 1989 to ensure that the Programme
proceeded at a reasonable pace, her concern that smear taking be encouraged in
priority to other aspects of the Programme and the decision to deliver the Programme
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using area health boards to establish, operate and monitor 14 stand-alone registers,
created systemic problems in the Programme which needed correction if the
Programme was to perform properly. The response to the perceived delay in
establishing the Programme, while intended to facilitate its establishment, only created
other problems for the Programme because it resulted in an imbalance of its parts.
Until this imbalance was corrected the Programme was never going to function
properly. For example, until quality assurance of laboratories was in place and
effective monitoring and evaluation carried out, the Programme was never going to be
able to identify if smear tests were being adequately read.
6.68 There was a failure to recognise the value of the screening registers as a means of
managing the Programme. The Ministerial Review Committee had said in its report
that it acknowledged the register was being developed primarily as a system to
facilitate cervical screening and recall. In the Committee‟s view, a cervical screening
register as part of a cervical screening programme should be more than this. It should
also be able to provide information which would be of assistance in managing the
Programme. While the information the system provided was helpful in terms of smear
taking, it was not able to provide sufficient information in respect of smear reading to
be of any use until it was reconfigured and histology was added to it. This was not
completed until 1997.
6.69 The Ministry has contrasted the establishment of the cervical screening programme
with the establishment of the breast screening programme. Both these programmes
were piloted at the same time, but the Ministry says :
“With the Cervical Screening Programme being imposed largely on existing
screening services and under intense public and political pressure. The
National Breast Screening Programme, by contrast, was not launched until
December 1988 after standards and procedures had been worked out.”
6.70 The Ministry appears to suggest that had the same approach been taken to the National
Cervical Screening Programme as was taken to the Breast Screening Programme, they
both may not have been launched until December 1998. The difficulty with this
submission is that the Committee did not hear full evidence on the establishment of the
Breast Screening Programme, and it therefore has no idea why it took until 1998 to
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launch a breast screening programme that was first piloted in 1989. It, therefore,
cannot make an appropriate comparison with the two programmes. Secondly, there
was no evidence as to how long it would have taken to have the National Cervical
Screening Programme in place, if its launch had been delayed until all its components
were present.
6.71 Furthermore, if the Programme had not been in place during the time Dr Bottrill was
in practice, women in Gisborne would not have relied upon it, and therefore they may
have been more alert to protecting themselves from developing cervical cancer. It
cannot be assumed that without a programme women simply would not have had
cervical smear tests. They may have resorted to opportunistic screening and had more
cervical screening tests than they did under the Programme. Because the Programme
was not fully effective, women were unknowingly relying upon a defective
programme to protect them from developing cervical cancer. Thus it cannot be argued
that, without the Programme, women would have been in the same position or worse
off. At the very least they would not have had the false sense of comfort.
6.72 In addition, one of the reasons why some members of the medical profession appear to
have been initially reluctant to accept there was a significant under-reporting problem
in Gisborne which required investigation, was because laboratories can make false
negative reports and the women who were participants in a screening programme had
a history of normal smears. The presence of the Programme also appears to have
given the women‟s medical practitioners a false sense of comfort. From the files the
Committee read there were women with signs of cervical cancer who were initially
assured by their clinicians that they could not have cancer because they had a history
of normal smear tests. Were they not participating in a screening programme, their
clinicians may well have considered the possibility of cervical cancer more readily.
The thrust of the Ministry‟s submission seems to be that it was better that the
Programme be in place in its defective form than not at all. The Committee‟s view is
that this is not an answer to the deficiencies of the Programme. The Committee heard
from witnesses that a defective programme can create a false sense of assurance. It
may well have been better to have nothing, and therefore no assurance at all, than the
false comfort that the Programme provided. This is the impression the Committee
gained from Professor Skegg‟s submission. He is an experienced epidemiologist with
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a world renown reputation. He submitted to the Committee that it may be better to
abandon screening programmes if adequate steps are not going to be taken to monitor
the quality of the process or of the outcomes achieved:
“Unfortunately the problems I have described [ in gaining access to essential
information and inability to audit ] are not isolated or unusual incidents. Unless such
problems can be resolved, it could be argued that New Zealand should consider
abandoning national programmes such as those for the control of cervical cancer and
breast cancer. It seems unethical to exhort apparently healthy people to undergo
medical procedures, when adequate steps cannot be taken to monitor the quality of the
process or the outcomes achieved.
This submission suggests to the Committee that Professor Skegg does not favour the
view that an inadequate screening programme is better than nothing at all. While it
can be said that the Programme has reduced cervical cancer morbidity and mortality in
New Zealand, that is on a national basis. The Programme did little to assist the
women in the Gisborne region. It can be little comfort to them to know that nationally
there has been a reduction in cases of cervical cancer.
6.73 The Programme got off to a bad start. By the time the need for change was recognised
there were already women enrolled on the Programme, and so the Department of
Health and subsequently the Ministry of Health was faced with the prospect of having
to redesign a programme which was already in operation. This meant that instead of
being able to focus on getting the design and implementation right, energy was divided
between running the Programme in its sub-optimal state and having to deal with the
problems thus created, while at the same time trying to introduce the necessary
changes to the Programme. The impact on the Programme of the failure to have
everything essential in place from the outset is exemplified by the interchange between
counsel assisting, the Committee and Ms Glackin:
MS JANES: The evidence of certainly Dr Cox was that this clinical
audit or retrospective look at women who developed invasive cancer should,
as Ms Glackin has said, be a routine occurrence. Would you accept that if
that had occurred early on in the programme the problems with s74A would
have been understood much more quickly than it has been now?
MS GLACKIN: I would, but I should make the comment that from a
technical perspective there are issues with having, apparently, sufficient
numbers of women enrolled and to make the evaluation feasible. One of the
issues with this programme is that until after opt-off in 1993 we had quite
small numbers. So I understand there were some technical issues about
when the evaluation could be done.
CHAIR: But I understand Ms Glackin that in terms of the clinical
audit of cases, … if in an area you are having women develop cancer and if
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you go back to their smear test history and you see that within a certain
period of time – say 5 years – they‟ve had 2 normal smear tests, if you get
more than 1 case of that occurring it can be an indicator (quite a strong
indicator) that there is under-reporting. So, if you had just been able to
compare the two sets of data from two registers and look at the pattern of the
smear histories it could have been a red flag to the need for further
investigation to see if there was under-reporting in that area.
MS GLACKIN: Yes, indeed, if the data were available from the Cancer
Registry, yes.
CHAIR: And do you agree this really reinforces what the World
Health Organisation was saying to run a programme effectively you really
need to have all aspects in place at once, or if you are building up good data
from the Cancer Register and the Screening Register and you can make the
necessary links and if you can make the necessary links between cytology
and histology all these factors go to help you identify more readily cases
where the programme might be failing in respect of under-reporting of smear
tests?
MS GLACKIN: I would agree with that, and I think, looking over time,
what we have been doing is progressing towards that state. I think the
Inquiry is well aware of how long various aspects of that have taken. I
should perhaps make the point, of course, which the Inquiry is well aware of,
that the Cancer Registry deals with cancers of all sorts.”
This evidence shows that the Programme, which was designed between 1989 and 1990
and fully operational from early 1992 onwards, still does not have in place all of its
essential components.
Failure To Ensure That There Was Legal Power To Do What Was Needed For
The Programme To Be Effective And Failure To Exercise Or To Exercise
Properly Legal Powers That Were Available To Achieve This End
6.74 An effective cervical screening programme requires sufficient legal power to ensure
that whatever needs to be done is done. In addition it is helpful if these powers are
clearly stated as otherwise there will be confusion when it comes to exercising them.
The Committee has been dismayed to learn that the National Cervical Screening
Programme lacked certain necessary legal powers throughout the time that Dr Bottrill
was in practice. These necessary legal powers continue to be absent. Secondly, there
has been a failure to recognise the availability of existing legal powers and so these
have been unexercised. Thirdly, at times existing legal powers have not been properly
exercised, to the disadvantage of the Programme. The resulting legal quagmire has
been a real obstacle to the Programme‟s effectiveness; its presence is indicative of a
systemic deficiency within the Programme. An effective screening programme would
have the necessary legal power and ability to achieve its purpose and to allow it to
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work effectively. This is something which should have been recognised and put in
place from the beginning. Similarly any structural or other changes to the Programme
should have been accompanied by whatever legal adjustments were necessary to allow
these changes to work effectively. Unfortunately this was not done.
6.75 Legal inadequacies have been of most concern to the Committee in relation to:
(i) The monitoring and evaluation of the Programme
(ii) The compulsory imposition of quality assurance processes on
laboratories reading cervical cytology;
No Monitoring and Evaluation
6.76 The Ministry of Health has always had responsibility under the Policy documents for
monitoring and evaluating the Programme. The Policy documents of 1991, 1993 and
1996 all placed this responsibility on the Ministry. As late as 1996 the Policy stated in
para 3.6.2 that it was the Ministry of Health‟s responsibility to ensure that the
Programme was monitored and evaluated nationally.
“3.6.2 Monitoring and Evaluation
The Ministry of Health is responsible for ensuring that the NCSP is
monitored and evaluated nationally. It is responsible for ensuring that any
necessary response is made to information obtained from the NCSR,
performance indicators, routine or other analysis. It is the Ministry of
Health‟s role to make sure that progress towards achieving the goal and
objectives of the NCSP is evaluated and fed back to provides and the
community. To ensure this is achieved, the Ministry of Health is beginning
an evaluation of the NCSP in the 1996/97 year. This will include evaluation
of the NCSP‟s provisions to priority groups and other sub-populations,
evaluation of the NCSP‟s acceptability to consumers, and evaluation of
expenditure on the NCSP.
The NCSP is unique in that the NCSR, which is located in the Ministry of
Health, contains much of the information for effective monitoring and
evaluation.
The effectiveness of the NCSP will be judged ultimately in terms of the
incidence of and rates of deaths from cervical cancer. There will be
considerable lag, however, before the impact of changes in cervical screening
are reflected in lowered incidence and mortality rates. Data collection and
analysis of interim measures are carried out for quality assurance of service
delivery, comparative assessment of providers and monitoring and evaluation
of processes and outcomes along the screening pathway. To ensure cost-
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effectiveness of monitoring and evaluation, the amount of data collected
should be the absolute minimum to adequately address the relevant issues.”
And in August 1997 Ms Glackin wrote to all laboratories attaching a report of an
analysis of the laboratories‟ smear test results. The letter stated:
“One of the NSCP‟s major principles has been the implementation and emphasis on quality
assurance with the aim to reduce the number of false negative results.”
6.77 The reality is that when the Ministry came to carry out many of these actions it found
that there were legal barriers to doing so. Clearly these legal barriers were not
foreseen by the persons responsible for writing the 1996 Policy, or by anyone else in
the Ministry at that time. The first time the Ministry realised there were legal barriers
to the comprehensive monitoring and evaluation exercise going ahead was in 1999
when the independent evaluation team it had engaged could not access vital
information held on the National Cervical Screening Register or the Cancer Register.
The independent evaluation team could not investigate whether invasive cervical
cancers were detected by regular screening or by another method, as Ministry of
Health staff would not allow them to access information from the Cancer Register
which identified women with invasive cervical cancer. Nor would the evaluation team
have been able to access information on the National Cervical Screening Register to
learn the screening histories of these women, as s.74A of the Health Act denied them
access to this information. Although, as stated in the Policy 1996, this Register is now
a source of information which can be used for effective monitoring and evaluation,
there are legal barriers which prevent it from being used in this way.
6.78 Initially the National Cervical Screening Register could not for practical reasons be
used as a tool for monitoring and evaluation until it became an opt-off register which
had been reconfigured into a centralised registration system, and the data on the
Register had been audited to ensure its reliability. However legislation which
permitted these necessary changes also introduced the legal barriers which now
prevent the data on the Register from being utilised by an independent evaluation
team.
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6.79 In response to the Ministry‟s call for an independent evaluation of the Programme in
1996 an independent team of medical experts from Otago University tendered its
proposal for the evaluation in June 1997. This proposal was rejected on the grounds of
cost. The Committee has learnt in evidence from Dr Cox who was part of the
independent audit team, and from Dr Peters, who is currently responsible for the
Programme, that the evaluation as envisaged in the June 1997 tender is worthwhile
and should be carried out. The Ministry then called for further tenders for a partial
evaluation of the Programme. A second tender was put forward by the same
independent team from Otago University, and this was accepted in 1999. This limited
evaluation plan comprised three phases. Ms Glackin told the Committee that when
cost had ruled out the comprehensive evaluation these three phases were chosen
because the Cervical Screening Advisory Committee considered them to be the
highest priority. The first phase was able to be completed without meeting any legal
obstacles. However, the second and third phase foundered as a result of legal
problems relating to access to essential information.
6.80 The second phase of the evaluation involved looking at the appropriateness of follow-
up and treatment for women with abnormal smears. The aim of this phase was to
assess whether the treatment offered to women with abnormal smears was in
accordance with the guidelines for the management of abnormal smears in the
Programme, and whether all women with abnormal smears were followed up; to
assess the proportion of women who continued to have abnormal smears after
treatment of low-grade squamous intraepithelial lesions and high-grade squamous
intraepithelial lesions; to assess the timeliness of follow up for women who have
abnormal smears and assess the specificity of cervical screening in New Zealand. At
the time of the public hearings, the Committee was told that the second phase could
not be completed. This was due to the evaluation team being unable legally to gain
access to the information it needed from the National Cervical Screening Register in
order to carry out this phase. The legal barrier that prevented them from doing so was
s.74A of the Health Act. That section was also given as a reason for the Director-
General refusing to respond to the Committee‟s subpoena issued under s.4d of the
Commissions of Inquiry Act. The Committee had ordered the Director-General to
produce certain information about identifiable women which was held on the Register.
The correctness of the Ministry‟s legal interpretation of s.74A in this regard was to be
191
referred to the High Court. However, because it became clear to the Committee that
any High Court judgment on this issue would be of academic value only, owing to
proposed new legislation which would remove the powers of a Commission of Inquiry
in relation to ministerial committees. Thus, the reference to the High Court was
abandoned.
6.81 Section 74A was intended to protect the confidentiality of women‟s information on the
Register. It, therefore, limits the circumstances in which data on identifiable women
can be obtained. Access to data on identifiable women is so circumscribed by s.74A
that persons contracted by the Ministry of Health to access the data for the purposes of
evaluating the performance of the Register and the Programme, cannot legally do so.
The Committee was appalled to discover that qualified medical persons engaged under
contract by the Ministry of Health to evaluate the Programme could be prevented from
evaluating a pivotal part of the Programme by legislation which the Ministry itself had
promoted. Ms Glackin accepted that at the time of promoting this legislation the
Ministry had failed to appreciate its true force. She told the Committee that the
official in the Ministry of Health who was responsible for managing the evaluation
had thought s.74A did not prevent the evaluation team from having access to the
Register:
“MS GLACKIN: …I've discussed this with Dr Kate Scott who is managing
the evaluation for us, who has also discussed the issue with Dr Cox, one
might have expected that all the time that went in to developing the draft
scoping plan that these difficulties with the proposal would have been
identified. In fact their view is that they had, as lay people, read this section
and mis-interpreted it to believe that, in fact, what was proposed was
possible, and it was not until Dr Cox wrote to Dr Peters at the Health
Funding Authority, in December last year, setting out in some detail what he
was proposing, and then the Health Funding Authority sought a legal opinion
as to the application of this section, that this issue was revealed as we now
know to actually prevent the release of data without informed consent.
Q: Can you comment on how it is that the Ministry which was responsible
for promoting the legislation in 1993 does not appear to have understood its
true force?
A: I think that is a fair supposition, with the light of hindsight now we are
quite clear.”
Moreover it was not until December 1999 that the Ministry discovered the problem
s.74A created for evaluation.
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“Q You have a situation here where section 74A is drafted in such a
way that it puts severe limitations on gaining access to the Screening Register
which can be a source of valuable information to those who are running the
Programme, and the section, the way it is drafted, then allows for the making
of regulations, which, by those regulations, allow access for persons studying
cancer. So, in other words, the legislation puts up a barrier but with the
provision to make regulations to exempt certain persons and the query I have
is, given that there is a recognised need for certain persons to have access to
the Screening Register, why such regulations weren‟t made?
A And I guess Ms Glackin‟s response is that the barrier was first
recognised in December 1999.”
6.82 The Committee first learned of the difficulty the evaluation team was encountering
when it heard evidence from Professor Skegg. The Committee was keen to see if there
was a way around the barrier which s.74A created. It appeared that either s.74A must
be amended, or a way through the legal barrier found, or the second phase of the
evaluation could not be carried out. The Committee learnt from evidence filed after
the public hearings that this phase is now proceeding. It is anticipated that this part of
the evaluation will be completed by 1 June 2001, however the project is about eight
months behind schedule. This phase was originally included in the comprehensive
evaluation plan put forward in June 1997. If all goes according to plan the first
evaluation of the appropriateness of follow up and treatment of women with abnormal
smears will be available by June 2001, some 10 years after the Programme‟s
implementation.
6.83 Section 74A does contain a power to make regulations which do permit persons to
have access to data of identifiable women on the Register. However, no such
regulations have been made. Secondly, the regulation-making power does not
specifically cover the release of this information for evaluation purposes. The section
refers to the release of information only to persons studying cancer. In its present
form s.74A would only permit regulations allowing an evaluation team to access data
on the Register which identifies women if the task of the evaluation team amounted to
a study of cancer. On a very wide interpretation of this phrase it can be said that a
screening programme is a tool to avoid cervical cancer; an evaluation is a study to see
if a screening programme is effective in this capacity; or an evaluation is a particular
aspect of such a study; therefore it is within the meaning of the section. But this is not
satisfactory. Legislation should be more specific than this. One of the core purposes
193
of the Register is to provide information for the purpose of monitoring and evaluating
the Programme‟s effectiveness. Therefore, legislation relating to the Register should
clearly and unreservedly permit an evaluation team engaged by the Ministry to have
access to all information of the Register. There should be no room for doubt about the
legality of access to the Register.
6.84 In the Committee‟s view s.74A indicates a systemic deficiency in the Programme.
Whoever in the Ministry was responsible for preparing a draft of the section and
instructing Parliamentary Counsel to draft the Parliamentary Bill to amend the Health
Act failed to provide evaluation teams with access to the protected information. This
indicates a breakdown in communication between this official in the Ministry and the
officials having responsibility for the Programme.
6.85 Secondly, since no official who had responsibility for the Programme recognised the
true effect of s.74A no attempt was made to use the regulation-making power allowing
persons studying cancer to have access to the protected information. Regulations were
made under s.74A(7) controlling access to data on Maori women enrolled on the
Register but no other use was made of the regulation-making power. The Ministry
officials were unable to provide the Committee with an explanation for this:
“Q: With 74A it is contemplated by sub-section 7 that regulations may be
passed for the following purposes: one is, a), regulating access to the
Register by persons studying cancer, and it might be that you could bring in
persons doing an evaluation of the programme to see if it‟s effectively
preventing or reducing the rate of cancer to be a study of cancer; and the
other one, d), regulating the use, disclosure and publication of information
from the Register. Now apart from the Kaitiaki Regulations, there have
been no other regulations passed, and if regulations had been passed those
regulations could have made provision for persons such as Doctors
Cox/Richardson when carrying out an external audit of the programme to
have access to the Screening Register. So could you tell me please why the
Ministry has never passed such regulations?
MS GLACKIN: I can't comment, as I said before, in relation to why they
weren't in fact passed at the time of the Kaitiaki Regulations. I don‟t think
there is any disagreement about the advice that following people with cancer
through is the gold standard in relation to treatment. And in the light of that,
I'm not sure what people – whoever was dealing with this felt in 1993, but
you would have expected that issue might have been addressed then.
Ms Glackin accepted that subject to carrying out appropriate consultation, regulations
could be made at any time. She advised the Committee (on 6 August 2000) that the
194
Ministry was presently working on regulations to overcome the obstacle that s.74A
presented to the evaluation team.
6.86 None of this would happen in a well designed and well implemented screening
programme. It is essential that the necessary legal foundation for a screening
programme is in place from its outset and if the Programme is subsequently altered the
legal implications which flow from this should be thought through and understood
before the change is made.
6.87 The third phase of the evaluation plan is an audit of the screening histories and
management of women with invasive cervical cancer. The aim is to assess the results
and frequency of previous cervical smears of women with invasive cervical cancer; to
review the management of previous abnormal smears in women who have developed
invasive cervical cancer; and to review the cytological and histological results of
women who have recently been diagnosed with invasive cervical cancer. This phase is
essentially the cancer audit, which is described in Term of Reference Two.
6.88 The Committee has already stated in its conclusions under Term of Reference Two
that it considers a cancer audit to be the gold standard for assessing the success or
failure of a screening programme. It is an effective way of detecting under-reporting.
However, the most recent evidence the Committee has received on the status of the
evaluation shows that this phase has still not been carried out. The reason for this is
complex. To carry out this phase of the evaluation the evaluation team required access
to information of identifiable women held on the Cancer Register. The Cancer
Registry staff would not release the information to the evaluation team without them
having Ethics Committee approval for the evaluation. The Cancer Registry acted in
this way because it considered that rule 11(2)(c)(iii) of the Health Information Privacy
Code 1994 governed the disclosure of information to the evaluation team. The effect
of this rule is that researchers wanting access to health information must satisfy the
entity holding the information that they have obtained ethical approval from an ethics
committee. However, it did not apply to the request the evaluation team had made.
6.89 The law governing the release of official information is complex. Some information is
specifically protected by statute. An example is the information on the National
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Cervical Screening Register which is protected by s.74A of the Health Act. However,
usually access to official information is not covered by specific legislation like s.74A,
in which case either the Privacy Act and any code made under that Act or the Official
Information Act will apply. The Cancer Registry Act 1994 imposes no restrictions on
access to the information held on the Cancer Register. Therefore, depending upon the
circumstances either the Privacy Act or the Official Information Act will apply. When
the information has been requested by the person to whom it relates the Privacy Act,
and in the health sector the Health Information Privacy Code, governs the release of
the information. Secondly, any voluntary release of information about a natural
person by a government department is governed by the Privacy Act and in the health
sector by the Health Information Privacy Code. Thus, government departments
cannot, of their own volition, chose to release official information which identifies an
individual. Finally when official information which identifies an individual has been
requested by anyone other than the individual to whom the information relates the
Official Information Act 1982 governs its release. This legislation takes precedence
over the Privacy Act and any Codes made under it. The information on the Cancer
Register is information held within a government department and, therefore, it is
subject to the Official Information Act 1982.
6.90 There is no mystery about how the Official Information Act fits with the Privacy Act.
Since both pieces of legislation have been enforced, the Privacy Commissioner has
published information explaining which Act applies in given circumstances. The
latest publication is the Health Information Privacy Code reprinted in June 2000. That
document states that :
“Public hospitals, the Ministry of Health and a number of other public bodies
are subject to the Official Information Act 1982. Information held by such
organisations can be requested under Part 2 of that Act and requests may be
refused only for the reasons set out in it.
Certain requests do not fall within the ambit of the Official Information Act.
For instance, requests made by individuals for information about themselves
must be dealt with in accordance with the Privacy Act and this Code.
When a request is made for official information (which is not about the
requester), a public sector agency [Ministry of Health] must consider the
application under the Official Information Act. One of the purposes of the
Official Information Act is to protect official information to the extent
consistent with the public interest and the preservation of personal privacy.
Accordingly, one of the permitted reasons for withholding information is
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privacy. Section 9(2)(a) provides for information to be withheld if it is
necessary to protect the privacy of a natural person including a deceased
natural person. If section 9(2)(a) applies the agency must also consider
whether in the particular circumstances the need to withhold is outweighed
by other considerations which make it desirable in the public interest to make
the information available.”
The Code continues :
“If an agency refuses to release information in response to an Official
Information Act request it must give its reasons in appropriate terms relevant
to that Act (eg : I consider it necessary to refuse the request under section
9(2)(a) of the Official Information Act to protect the privacy of the person
concerned as I do not consider any other public interest consideration
outweighs that interest in this case). The Privacy Act should not be cited as
the reason for refusing a request under the Official Information Act even if
Privacy itself is a reason for withholding the information.”
6.91 The evaluation team were seeking information which identified women recorded on
the Cancer Register as having cervical cancer and therefore their request should have
been dealt with under the Official Information Act. Section 9 of this Act protects the
privacy of individuals, but it also favours release of such information where the public
interest outweighs protecting an individual‟s privacy. In view of the importance of a
cancer audit, its dependence on obtaining information from the Cancer Register and
the medically qualified persons involved in the audit, the public interest in releasing
the information would outweigh protecting the privacy of the women on the register,
especially since the release would have been limited to the evaluation team. However,
the ministry officials at the Cancer Registry did not apply the test under s.9 of the
Official Information Act. They instead mistakenly applied rule 11(2)(c)(iii) of the
Health Information Privacy Code to the evaluation team‟s request. Consequently they
required the evaluation team to obtain ethics committee approval for the evaluation
task before they would release the data.
6.92 The ethics committee required the evaluation team to obtain the consent of the women
before gaining access to the women‟s data. However, the evaluation team could not
obtain consent from these women because until they saw the Cancer Register data they
did not know the women‟s identities and so they could not contact them to obtain their
consent. This placed the audit team in a “Catch 22”; to obtain consent from the
women whose data they wanted to access they needed to know the women‟s identities,
and they could not know who they were until they saw their data on the Cancer
Registry. The Ethics Committee then suggested that the Cancer Registry staff write to
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the women concerned. The evaluation team considered this was not workable and it
did not occur. This state of affairs meant that a crucial part of the evaluation plan,
which would identify under-reporting, was not carried out. Once again the Committee
learned of this from Professor Skegg‟s evidence.
6.93 The Committee was concerned to learn if under-reporting had occurred in other
regions. It issued a subpoena requiring the Director-General to produce information
from certain specified regions. This information was produced and the Committee
made it available to Professor Skegg. However, other information which the
Committee also wanted to give to Professor Skegg was withheld by the Ministry under
s.74A. The Committee ultimately abandoned its intention of having Professor Skegg
carry out an examination of other suspect regions where there was a high incidence of
cervical cancer because in September 2000 it was assured by counsel for the Ministry
of Health that the work the independent evaluation team was to carry out would
identify under-reporting if it had occurred in other regions.
6.94 The Ministry now accepts that the evaluation team‟s access to identifiable data on the
Cancer Register is governed by the Official Information Act. Correspondence from
the Director-General to the evaluation team confirms this. However, as at November
2000 this part of the evaluation was still not being carried out. Ms Grew in her
affidavit described it as being the most difficult part of the evaluation project. She
said that the Ministry was now to resume responsibility for the cancer audit and that it
would engage appropriate expertise under contract where necessary. It seems that, as
at November 2000, the medical experts on the evaluation team are unwilling to
proceed without the women‟s consent now that they have been required by an ethics
committee to obtain their consent. This may have changed subsequently; the
Committee has not received any further evidence to update its understanding of
events. It is not for the Committee to comment on the evaluation team‟s actions.
These events happened after the public hearings and the Committee has not had an
opportunity to question those involved. It cannot, from the written accounts of the
various persons involved, which at times are disputed, reach a view on what has
occurred. It does, however, record its deep regret that this much-needed exercise still
seems to be unable to be carried out.
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6.95 What is clear to the Committee is that the mistaken actions of Ministry officials have
stopped the cancer audit from proceeding and this may have been avoidable. If the
request for information had been handled under the Official Information Act the
information could have been given to the evaluation team and they would then have
been in a position to contact women for their consent to any further examination of
their past treatment.
6.96 The Committee cannot understand why ethics committee approval is necessary for an
evaluation of treatment as opposed to research. The guidelines to ethics committees
which set out their areas of influence are issued by the Minister of Health.
Unfortunately these guidelines are not well expressed. Even though the use of
independent consultants to carry out tasks for the Ministry is common, the Guidelines
permit internal audits to be carried out without ethics committee approval but they do
not expressly include an independent external evaluation. Thus they leave room to
argue that ethics committee‟s approval is required for these tasks.
6.97 The third phase of the cancer audit stopped at the point where the Ministry incorrectly
refused access to essential information. However, the other aspects of the third phase,
such as reviewing the management of previous abnormal smears in women and
reviewing their cytological and histological results, would involve either access to the
National Cervical Screening Register, or to the actual laboratory results. Section 74A
would have prevented the evaluation team from having access to the Register, and
without consent, it is hard to see how under the current privacy laws it would be
possible to access laboratory information. So the third phase of the evaluation may
well have encountered other obstacles if the women‟s consent was not obtained.
6.98 The need to obtain consent before gaining access to protected information poses
practical and technical problems. Women are not always easily traceable. Secondly
for the conclusions of an evaluation to be statistically meaningful and therefore
informative to medical experts the evaluation exercise must cover a sufficiently large
group of women. If only a small number give their consent the exercise will be
pointless. The Committee considers that faced with these problems the best choice is
to permit medical experts who have been engaged for the purpose of evaluating the
Programme to have access to the protected information without the need to obtain
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women‟s consent. It is difficult to see why women might object to an independent
evaluation team seeing information to which those medical persons who are involved
in their treatment have unrestricted access. If evaluation is seen as an integral part of a
woman‟s treatment under the Programme there is no difference.
6.99 The Committee was interested to hear from the Ministry‟s witnesses on how this legal
quagmire had come about. The impression the Committee gained from the evidence
was that the Ministry officials were as surprised as it was:
Q: … It says in the World Health Organisation bulletin, and this was in 1986
this came out, that “screening programmes can be evaluated by their failures.
Cases of symptomatic invasive cancer of the cervix, and especially of
advanced disease can be regarded as failures of a screening programme.
Knowledge of the age distribution of such cases and of their screening
history provides information of the effectiveness of the programme in
reaching the intended age groups and the quality of the screening being
carried out. Ideally if the complete registration of cases of cancer and of all
deaths by cause is in existence prior to the introduction of a screening
programme this permits the evaluation of the effective screening on the
trends and mortality and invasive disease”, and it goes on to say that “in
some areas of the world such data is not available but that shouldn't prevent
the introduction of screening.” It seems to me here that that particular study
is the third aspect that Doctors Cox/Richardson intended to carry out for the
evaluation. They have run into difficulties. There are difficulties gaining
access to the Cancer Register and there is the greater difficulty with the
Screening Register because legally the Cancer Register has no bars on
gaining access to information whereas 74A of the Screening Register
prevents such information. Now can you tell me why it is that these
legislative obstacles to carrying out what – apart from the World Health
Organisation bulletin we have heard from Doctors Teague, Professor
McGoogan, Dr Medley and Dr Peters as well as Dr Cox and Professor
Skegg, that this is the gold standard for measuring the effectiveness of a
Cervical Screening Programme. How has it come to be that it seems no-one
has even recognised the difficulties until the evaluation programme was
going to be carried out?
MS GLACKIN:: I cannot answer for the way the legislation was drafted in
the first place, and I‟m not aware that anyone else is able to explain that.
Certainly, my understanding has always been, from what I have been told,
particularly by Di Best, who was the co-ordinator in my time mostly, that this
was indeed the gold standard and in fact something that we would hope to do
quite routinely. I think what I can explain is why, in fact, it wasn‟t dealt
with at the beginning of the evaluation. That in fact is because the issue was
simply not recognised.
Q: No. It seemed to me that the fact that it wasn‟t recognised until the
evaluation, which if I just use as a key date Dr Cox‟s draft plan of June 97, if
you go back before that in time it seems that it wasn‟t recognised, and I stand
to be corrected on this, I assume because no-one at that stage took sufficient
steps down that track to encounter the legal obstacles that you do.
MS GLACKIN: I think that is true, but I would say as well, and I think this
has been pretty well canvassed too, that there were problems with the
completeness of the Cancer Registry data which actually imposed some
difficulties on that and they were certainly identified by Di Best in the time
that she was co-ordinator.
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CHAIR: Did you say that Di Best had an expectation that these audits could
be carried out routinely?
MS GLACKIN: No, my understanding was always that the programme
practice should ultimately be to carry those out routinely, and in a sense what
was being done in the evaluation was a catch up.
So it seems that the Ministry always intended cancer audits and other evaluation
studies of the type being undertaken by the independent evaluation team. However,
for reasons which were unknown to the officials who appeared before the Committee
the legal foundation to allow these exercises to go ahead had never been put in place.
6.100 In essence, what this legal quagmire reveals to the Committee is a failure on the part
of the Programme, when originally designed and subsequently, to ensure that an
essential legal foundation was present. Monitoring and evaluation was provided for in
the Policies from 1991 onwards. It was recognised by the various expert advisory
groups advising the Department of Health in 1989 and 1990, and by international
literature, as an essential component of a screening programme. That a necessary
legal foundation to allow it to occur is and always has been absent and secondly that
Ministry officials could misapply the present law, shows that this essential aspect of
the Programme has not been properly thought through.
6.101 The Committee considers that from the outset the Ministry should have ensured that
the necessary legal power and ability was available to allow the Programme to be
comprehensively monitored and evaluated. Monitoring and evaluation of a screening
programme‟s performance is a statistical exercise, and unless it involves a sufficient
number of women any analysis of the information will not be reliable. The question of
whether or not something as important as monitoring and evaluating the Programme‟s
performance through a cancer audit, or looking at the appropriateness of follow-up and
treatment for women with abnormal smears, should not turn on whether or not an
evaluation team can obtain the consent of a sufficient number of women to make the
evaluation statistically worthwhile. There is nothing unusual about allowing medical
experts access to this type of information. The literature on cervical screening
programmes emphasises the importance of these exercises.
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Legal Issues in Relation to Compulsory Imposition of Quality Assurance Processes On
Laboratories Reading Cervical Cytology
6.102 The Ministry of Health has maintained in its submissions that until the health reforms
of 1993, which introduced a contracts-based system for health funding, it was not
possible to compel laboratories to adopt quality assurance measures either directly
through a regulation-based quality assurance scheme, or indirectly through a
requirement that laboratories be accredited with TELARC or another independent
quality control authority. The Committee does not accept that prior to 1993 there was
no power to compel laboratories to use quality assurance processes, and it will address
this issue separately in this section of the report. However, if the Ministry is correct
and there was no power to compel laboratories to adopt quality control measures, then
this is a serious systemic flaw in the Programme. A well-designed screening
programme would have ensured from the outset that there was clear and specific legal
power to require laboratories to adopt quality assurance measures. To design a
programme without making sure that this necessary legal power was available is to
create a systemic deficiency in the Programme.
6.103 When the Programme was in its design stage the Department of Health, as a
government department, was in a position to promote primary legislation to enable
compulsory quality assurance processes to be imposed. Given how important quality
assurance of laboratory performance was for the Programme, the Department of
Health should have taken steps to ensure that the necessary power to impose it was
available. At the latest, by the time the Policy 1991 was prepared the Department
should have taken steps to learn if it could impose quality assurance on laboratories
and if not, the Minister of Health should have promoted legislation to achieve this.
The Committee considers that the Department should have obtained a Crown Law
opinion on the existing law to compel quality assurance, and if the advice was that this
was insufficient it should have advised and encouraged the Minister to take steps to
change the legislation.
6.104 The Committee has been told that officials believed that TELARC accreditation was
not a problem because most laboratories were moving towards it. Nevertheless, the
Department should have ensured that it had the legal power either to impose its own
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quality assurance scheme under regulations or to require laboratories to become
TELARC accredited within the timeframe envisaged in the Policy 1991. These
obligations should have been backed up with the power to apply sanctions against
non-compliant laboratories. It should have been obvious to the Department that
without such legal compulsion there would be some laboratories that would not take
steps to become TELARC accredited; or if they did, that any steps towards
accreditation would be cursory. There was no economic incentive for laboratories to
adopt quality assurance or to become accredited with TELARC. Laboratories were
not at risk of becoming liable for compensatory damages as a result of any negligence
on their part in diagnosing a test because of the Accident Compensation legislation,
which prohibits legal actions based upon personal injury. More is said on this in term
of reference seven. Secondly, all laboratories received the same funding for their
diagnostic services (they were paid a specific sum per smear test). Quality assurance
processes, including TELARC accreditation are an additional expense for a laboratory.
For example: TELARC accreditation required a laboratory to upgrade its processes
and often its equipment and staff. In this environment there was no economic
incentive for a laboratory to adopt quality assurance processes including TELARC
accreditation; indeed it was economically rational for a laboratory not to do so as this
meant it kept its costs lower for the same return as laboratories which did adopt quality
assurance and TELARC accreditation. All of this should have been apparent to the
Department at the time.
6.105 Throughout the period that Dr Bottrill was in practice there were other changes to
legislation relating to the Programme. Once the decision was made to move to a
centralised opt-off register the Health Act 1956 was amended to allow for this, and to
allow a patient‟s histology to be correlated with her cytology. The Minister of Health
was, therefore, successful in introducing this legislative change and having it passed
by Parliament. Furthermore new legislation, in the form of the Cancer Registry Act
1994, to make registration of cancer data compulsory was also successfully introduced
into and passed by Parliament. The majority of community laboratories supported
quality assurance measures including TELARC accreditation, so it is not as if any
legislation to compel the adoption of these measures would have been controversial.
The bulk of the services provided by community diagnostic laboratories have always
been fully funded either directly or indirectly from government funds, so it does not
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seem unreasonable to require adoption of these measures as a condition of payment.
However, the evidence shows that neither the Department nor the Ministry of Health
took steps to advise the Minister of the need to promote such legislation and so
nothing was done to bring it about.
6.106 Until 1993 community laboratories were funded directly by the Department of Health
through regulations made under the Social Security Act 1964. The last regulations to
be made under that Act were the Social Security (Laboratory Diagnostic Services)
Regulations 1981. The Committee did not find it necessary to look at any of the
earlier regulations for the purposes of this report. However hospital laboratories are
and always were funded differently. Regulation 10 of the Social Security (Laboratory
Diagnostic Services) Regulations did not allow payments to be made to hospital
laboratories. The funding of hospital laboratories is and was included in the bulk
funding which all hospitals have received from the various government agencies
having responsibility for funding public hospitals throughout the various forms of
health delivery which have prevailed in New Zealand.
6.107 After the restructuring of health services in 1993 four Regional Health Authorities
became responsible for funding the diagnostic services of community laboratories.
This was done initially pursuant to notices issued under section 51 of the Health and
Disability Services Act 1993, and then as each Regional Health Authority was able to
negotiate a contract with the community laboratories in its region, pursuant to that
contract. The Regional Health Authorities received their funding from contracts they
had made with the Ministry of Health. Subsequently the Regional Health Authorities
were merged into one entity which ultimately became the Health Funding Authority.
At the time of the Inquiry the Health Funding Authority was in the process of being
merged with the Ministry of Health to form a new Ministry.
6.108 The Midland Regional Health Authority, which was the authority responsible for the
region in which Gisborne Laboratories operated, did not complete the negotiation of
its contract with the community laboratories in its region until after the business of
Gisborne Laboratories had been sold to Medlab Hamilton and Dr Bottrill had retired.
All the payments for cervical cytology read at Gisborne Laboratories were made under
either regulation 8 of the Social Security (Laboratory Diagnostic Services) Regulations
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1981 or notices issued under section 51 of the Health and Disability Services Act
1993. Neither form of payment was linked with requirements for quality assurance. It
is a feature of the funding of community laboratories throughout the time Dr Bottrill
practised that the government agencies responsible for paying for their services did no
more than to rely on the professional qualifications of the persons who worked in the
laboratories to ensure that every laboratory performed competently.
6.109 Between 1990 and March 1996 the only direct control on community laboratories that
was relevant to terms of reference two and three was the Medical Laboratory
Technologists Regulations 1989. Regulation 9 of these regulations required cervical
smear test reading to be carried out by a medical practitioner, a registered medical
technologist or someone working under the supervision of either of these persons. It is
notable that the regulations did not require the medical practitioner to be a registered
pathologist. Dr Boyd told the Committee that under the Medical Practitioners Act
1968, which was the legislation in force throughout the time Dr Bottrill was in
practice, the medical profession was self-regulating and that:
“Monitoring the professional competence of an individual practitioner, so far
as the Department/Ministry was concerned, relied largely on appropriate
entry standards into the profession, and the sanctions applied by disciplinary
bodies established under the Act [Medical Practitioner Act 1968} to any
doctor found guilty of professional misconduct or disgraceful conduct. … the
Department‟s primary method of influence until 1993 was through the
payment of benefits and the threat of non-payment.”
Furthermore under the Medical Practitioners Act 1968 once a medical practitioner had
obtained registration on the specialist register of his or her particular speciality there
was:
“… no requirement for maintaining competency and names were maintained
on the register until the practitioners asked to have their name removed, died,
were not able to be contacted by the Medical Council or were struck off as a
result of disciplinary action by the Council.”
This might suggest that there was little that the Department/Ministry of Health could
do to ensure medical practitioners retained their competency in their field of practice.
However, Dr Boyd acknowledged in evidence that the Minister of Health could
indirectly exert control on community laboratories through the Social Security
(Laboratory Diagnostic Services) Regulations 1981. And from 1993 onwards the s.51
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notices gave the Regional Health Authorities sufficient authority to impose quality
control requirements on community laboratories
Social Security (Laboratory Diagnostic Services) Regulations
6.110 Under the scheme of the Social Security (Laboratory Diagnostic Services) Regulations
payments for publicly funded diagnostic services performed at community laboratories
were made to persons who qualified under the regulations as “recognised
pathologists.” The regulations made no provision to pay community laboratories
which operated as limited liability companies for the services they provided. Dr Boyd
informed the Committee that the payments to “recognised pathologists” included
payment for those services that were actually performed by laboratory technicians
such as cytotechnologists or cytoscreeners. He said that the “recognised pathologist
was expected to provide appropriate supervision of other laboratory staff, and that this
meant that the head pathologist at a laboratory received payment for the services at
that laboratory, and in turn he or she was expected to ensure adequate service:
“Subsidies were almost universally paid to a named registered medical
practitioner (for example a pathologist), even when the service was provided
in a laboratory by a cytologist or a cytotechnologist, or from a clinic or when
the subsidy related to services provided by a practice nurse. The expectation
was of appropriate supervision by the responsible named practitioner. So, for
example, the head pathologist at a laboratory received payment for services
at that laboratory. He or she was looked on to ensure adequate service.”
6.111 Regulation 5 gave the Minister of Health the power to recognise medical practitioners
as pathologists for the purpose of the regulations. The Minister was assisted in the
exercise of this power by the Laboratory Services Advisory Committee. Dr Boyd said
that this Committee advised the Minister on aspects of the Laboratory Diagnostic
Services Benefit, including its administration. Dr Boyd also said that complaints
about the quality of service at a laboratory which came to the Department‟s attention
could be taken to this committee for advice.
6.112 Later in his evidence Dr Boyd explained to the Committee how pathology was
recognised as a speciality of medicine and that pathologists could apply to have their
names included on the specialist register under the Registration of Specialists
Regulations 1971. As a separate process the Department maintained and published a
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list of specialists eligible to claim specialist benefits under the Social Security Act
1964. Included in this list would have been those pathologists whom the Minister of
Health had “recognised” pursuant to regulation 5 of the Social Security (Laboratory
Diagnostic Services) Regulations. Dr Boyd informed the Committee that the
Laboratory Services Advisory Committee dealt with applications for recognition as a
pathologist under the Social Security (Laboratory Diagnostic Services) Regulations.
He said:
“Pathologists seeking recognition were required to describe the laboratory
services that would be provided, the laboratory equipment and staffing and
their qualifications which would make them suitable for supervising the
laboratory service to be provided. A recommendation went from the
Committee to the Minister of Health when the Committee considered a
pathologist suitable to claim benefits.”
6.113 Regulation 6 enabled the Minister to refuse to recognise a medical practitioner as a
pathologist. Under regulation 6(2) the Minister could make the recognition of a
medical practitioner subject to any conditions which he or she thought fit to impose, so
long as they were not inconsistent with the regulations. Under regulation 6(3) the
Minister could, on giving one month‟s written notice in writing, revoke any
recognition given by him or her under the regulations or alter the conditions attached
to the recognition.
6.114 It appears then that the Minister had some measure of control over community
laboratories through the decision to grant recognition to a pathologist or to impose
conditions on the recognition of a pathologist; because this determined whether or not
the pathologist could be paid for providing diagnostic services. However, there was
no attempt to use the regulations to impose quality assurance on community
laboratories under Department of Health supervision. The Committee heard no
evidence to indicate that Department of Health officials had ever considered the
possibility of the Minister using the power to impose conditions under regulation 6(2)
to specify a requirement for quality control and the form it should take. The
Committee did hear evidence of the Ministry requesting legal advice in 1992 on
whether or not it could impose TELARC accreditation as a condition of payment. The
evidence the Committee heard shows that Department of Health officials made one
attempt to introduce a quality control measure into community laboratory practice in
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the early stages of the National Cervical Screening Programme. Dr Boyd told the
Committee that, once the National Cervical Screening Programme was in operation,
the Department had sought advice on making laboratory accreditation with TELARC,
or a similar authority, a condition of payment under the Social Security (Laboratory
Diagnostic Services) Regulations. However, the Department was advised by one of its
inhouse solicitors that it had no power under the regulations to do this.
6.115 After the close of the formal hearing, the Committee sought written submissions on
whether or not the regulations gave the Department the power to impose a quality
assurance scheme as a condition of payment. Counsel for the women affected filed
submissions which contended that the regulations gave the Minister the authority to
impose a quality assurance regime as a condition of recognition under regulation 6(2).
The Ministry of Health filed written submissions which had been prepared by its
inhouse solicitors. They submitted: that the Social Security Act 1964 under which the
regulations were made did not authorise regulations which imposed a quality control
regime on pathologists; and that in so far as the Social Security (Laboratory
Diagnostic Services) Regulations purported to allow the imposition of conditions
relating to the recognition of a pathologist under the regulations they were ultra vires
and therefore unlawful. In addition they submitted that, for the same reason that the
current regulations were ultra vires, it would not have been possible to make new
regulations which provided the authority to impose quality control on laboratories
6.116 Since the Ministry of Health now submits that regulation 6(2) of the Social Security
(Laboratory Diagnostic Services) Regulations is ultra vires it is necessary to look at
the regulation-making power in the Social Security Act 1964 in order to determine if
the Minister/Department of Health could as a condition of payment impose a quality
assurance scheme or require laboratories to be accredited with TELARC or any other
similar authority. There would have been no legal impediment to imposing such a
scheme on hospital laboratories as these were funded through the bulk funding the
Department provided to Area Health Boards. The bulk funding was provided via a
contract system with the Area Health Boards, therefore, it should have been legally
possible to impose by contract a requirement that hospital laboratories reading cervical
cytology participate in a quality assurance scheme which mirrored any scheme
imposed by regulation on community laboratories.
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6.117 Essentially the Ministry of Health‟s submission is that the very general power to make
regulations, which was to be found in s.132 of the Social Security Act, was not as
wide-ranging as it appeared to be. The Ministry contends that the power in s.132 must
be read in the context of the scheme and purpose of the Act. And since the purpose of
the Act was to provide benefits to persons, including health benefits, the Act‟s scheme
and purpose did not permit the imposition of conditions on the recognition of persons
eligible to receive payment of these benefits. Following on from this submission the
Ministry contends that it would not have been lawful to amend the Social Security
(Laboratory Diagnostic Services) Regulations by including a specific regulation
imposing a quality assurance regime or a requirement for accreditation on laboratories.
The submission is surprising. The regulations were in place from 1981 until 1993 and
throughout that time no-one questioned whether or not they were lawful. They would
have been prepared by Ministry solicitors and Parliamentary counsel.
6.118 To support its submissions the Ministry of Health filed an affidavit from Mr Jamieson,
Parliamentary Counsel. The thrust of Mr Jamieson‟s affidavit was that a new
regulation under the Social Security (Laboratory Diagnostic Services) Regulations
which created a quality assurance scheme, or expressly provided the Minister with the
power to impose a requirement for laboratories to be TELARC accredited before being
eligible for payment, was not possible, as it was likely to be ultra vires. He said that if
he had been asked to prepare such a regulation he could not have supported doing so.
6.119 The difficulty with this submission is that the Committee is aware that regulation 6(2)
of these regulations already expressly permitted the Minister to impose conditions on
recognition of pathologists, which in turn affected whether or not they were paid for
their services. Regulation 6(2) would have been prepared in conjunction with
Parliamentary Counsel and would have required Parliamentary Counsel‟s approval.
Therefore, the Committee must balance against the information it now has from Mr
Jamieson its knowledge that on an earlier occasion another Parliamentary Counsel saw
no difficulty with including in these regulations a power to impose conditions on
pathologists.
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6.120 While the recent evidence from Mr Jamieson and the inferences to be drawn as regards
the opinions of an earlier Parliamentary counsel are interesting, ultimately it is a
question of statutory interpretation. Traditionally legal opinions on matters of
domestic law have not been admissible in evidence and the present conflict of
evidence shows that there is good reason for that.
6.121 The Ministry submits that reg 6(2) offends a well-recognised principle that regulations
made under provisions like s132 can only be for the purpose of carrying into effect
what is already in a statute; and they cannot widen, depart from or vary the legislative
scheme in their empowering Act. The Ministry‟s view is that ss. 123 and 116 define
the relevant purposes of the Social Security Act when it comes to payment of benefits
for laboratory services. It contends that s.123 of the Act provides a scheme for
making payments to specialists and if there is any power to confine making payments
to specialists (pathologists) it must be found in that section and not in any regulation
made under s132. Because under s.123 there was no power to make payments
conditional on the performance of certain acts, it could not be done. The Ministry also
submits that it was unlawful for the regulations to give the Minister a general
discretionary power to recognise pathologists. It contends that this is an unlawful
delegation and that the criteria for recognition must be set out in the regulations.
6.122 The Committee accepts that the scheme and purpose of the Social Security Act can
confine a general regulation-making power like s.132. However, it does not accept the
remainder of the Ministry‟s submissions on this issue. The Ministry‟s submissions
rely upon a particular interpretation of s.123 of the Social Security Act which the
Committee does not accept. The Committee considers that s.123 does not apply to the
Social Security (Laboratory Diagnostic Services) Regulations. The Committee‟s view
is that s.116 is a stand-alone provision to pay supplementary benefits which contains
its own power to make regulations for that purpose. The only provisions that were
relevant to the power to make payments to laboratories were ss.116 and 132.
6.123 The Social Security Act made wide provision for payment of benefits of many types.
Part II of the Act provided the statutory mechanism for a public health system. It
made provision for a number of health related benefits. Section 89 sets out the classes
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of benefits; these are: medical benefits; pharmaceutical benefits; hospital benefits,
maternity benefits, and supplementary benefits.
6.124 However, when the Act it looked at as a whole it appears that there is a divide between
supplementary benefits under s.116 and the other benefits, including payments to
specialists. Section 116(1) refers back to a series of benefits, these are: medical
benefits; pharmaceutical benefits; hospital benefits; and maternity benefits. Section
116 provides:
“Without limiting the general power to make regulations conferred by
section 132 of this Act regulations may be made under that section
prescribing such supplementary benefits as in the opinion of the Governor
General are necessary for the effective operation of the several classes of
benefits expressly provided for by the foregoing provisions of this part of this
Act or as in his opinion are necessary to maintain and promote the public
health.”
Section 116(2) continues :
“Without limiting the provisions of subsection 1 of this section that section
shall be deemed to authorise the making of regulations to provide for
treatment at hospitals or elsewhere for outpatients for physiotherapy services
for radiological and laboratory services.”(emphasis added)
In the Committee‟s view because s.116(2) deems laboratory services to be within the
provisions of s.116(1) this indicates that were it not for s.116(2) such services would
not come within subsection 116(1). In other words, supplementary benefits are
additional to and separate from the other benefits in Part II. When the classes of
benefits provided in the foregoing provisions to s.116(1) are examined, they do not
appear to cover laboratory services. Furthermore, if laboratory services did come
within one of those classes there would have been no need for the legislature to
include laboratory services in s.116(2). Secondly, s.123(2) specifically refers to
regulations made under s.116(1) or s.123(1) of the Act. This sentence is disjunctive
and reinforces the divide between s.116 benefits and other benefits. For these reasons
the Committee considers that s.116 coupled with s.132 provides sufficient authority to
make regulations to pay for laboratory services and that none of the other provisions in
Part II of the Social Security Act are relevant to these payments.
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6.125 Given that laboratories received public money for their services it does not seem
inconsistent with the Act that laboratories should be subject to providing those
services in accordance with certain conditions. The Committee considers that the
imposition of a quality assurance scheme or TELARC accreditation was something
that was incidental to the execution of the Act‟s specific provisions. Therefore, the
Committee considers that regulation 6(2) was within the scope of the combined
regulation making powers of s.116 and s.132. Hence, it was legally possible to impose
quality assurance and accreditation requirements as a condition of payment under
regulation 6. It also considers that there is nothing in conflict with the Act to permit
the Minister to recognise pathologists for the same reasons.
6.126 Having concluded that regulation 6(2) was lawful, the Committee must now consider
whether or not that regulation permitted the imposition of a scheme of quality
assurance measures which were subject to inspection by persons to whom the
Director-General of Health had delegated this responsibility. The scheme and purpose
of the regulations was to direct payment to those medical practitioners who had
satisfied the Minister that they should receive recognition as pathologists, and to
provide a measure of control over the performance of recognised pathologists. For
example regulation 6(2) specifically permitted the Minister to impose conditions
which made all equipment and apparatus used by the pathologist subject to inspection
by persons authorised by the Director-General of Health. The express reference in
regulation 6(2) to inspecting equipment and apparatus used by the pathologist can only
have been for the purpose of ensuring it worked properly and did not impact badly on
the pathologist‟s performance in the laboratory. The express reference to inspection of
laboratory equipment and apparatus being made subject to conditions shows that the
authority to impose conditions, under regulation 6(2), was not intended to be confined
to the pathologist but could extend to his or her work environment as well.
6.127 There is nothing about the imposition of a requirement to carry out quality assurance
or coupled with a power to inspect its discharge that is inconsistent with the
regulations. Once quality assurance had become an acceptable part of a pathologist‟s
laboratory practice there was no legal impediment to making it a condition of
recognition under regulation 6(2). The use of quality assurance would have been
another feature of a pathologist‟s work environment which affected the quality of his
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or her performance, and which was capable of being inspected and assessed like the
laboratory equipment and apparatus the pathologist used. By the early nineteen
nineties quality control measures were operating in a number of New Zealand
community laboratories. In Australia quality control in the form of accreditation with
the Australian equivalent of TELARC had been a mandatory condition of a diagnostic
laboratory receiving Medicare funding since 1987.
6.128 In the Committee‟s view by the early nineteen nineties quality assurance was seen as a
standard practice of good pathologists, and therefore it would have been a reasonable
condition to impose under regulation 6(2). Given that pathologists‟ services were
being funded from public funds and they were a health service that was provided for
the public good an attempt by the Minister to ensure that the services being funded
were of good quality would have complied with the Minister‟s legal obligations to act
reasonably and in accordance with the regulations.
6.129 For the same reason that it considers regulation 6(2) enabled the Minister to impose a
quality control scheme directly on pathologists the Committee can see no reason why
the Minister could not have made accreditation with an agency such as TELARC a
condition under regulation 6(2). The demands of accreditation would have improved
the performance of those who worked in a laboratory in much the same way as the
direct imposition of a quality control scheme under regulation 6(2). For the same
reasons that the Committee considers the regulations permitted a regulatory quality
control scheme to be imposed, the Committee is at a loss to see how it could be
thought that the regulations did not permit a condition requiring accreditation with
TELARC. The Committee‟s view that the regulations permitted the imposition of
mandatory accreditation as a condition of pathologists‟ recognition under the
regulations was accepted as correct by the Ministry‟s counsel at the hearings before
the Committee.
6.130 The legal advice the Department of Health received from its inhouse solicitor on the
use of the regulations to impose mandatory accreditation is sparse. It is no more than
paragraphs and gives no reasons to support the conclusion reached. There was no
evidence that the advice was ever queried, or that a second opinion was sought. There
was no evidence of any request for advice on this subject being made to the Crown
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Law Office. Ms Judith Glackin who a senior Ministry of Health official. She said that
if she had received such advice she would have queried it. The Committee considers
that the response Ms Glackin outlined to it is appropriate and it should have been
taken at the time. It is unfortunate that the advice of the inhouse solicitor was
accepted without demur. By not pursuing this matter further the Department of Health
officials who sought the legal advice lost an opportunity to ensure that the government
policy to require TELARC accreditation by 1993 was achieved.
6.131 The Government Policy for National Cervical Screening (1991) contemplated that all
laboratories reading cervical cytology would be accredited by 1993. If the Minister
had imposed accreditation as a requirement of payment under regulation 6(2) there
could have been a lead-in period to allow laboratories sufficient time to bring their
practices up to accreditation standard. At the time approximately 22 laboratories were
already accredited. Once the chosen lead in period had expired all cervical cytology
work could have been directed to the accredited laboratories. There may have been
resistance from some laboratories which found it difficult to obtain accreditation,
however the Minister and Department of Health officials should have been prepared to
respond to such resistance and to meet any legal challenge that was brought. The need
for accreditation of laboratories by 1993 was part of the government‟s policy for the
National Cervical Screening Programme; it was a sensible policy which would have
been of direct benefit to women having cervical smear tests and of indirect benefit to
their families through the health benefits which women enjoyed as a result of having
cervical smear tests. The Minister and the Department of Health should have been
prepared to do whatever they each had to do to ensure the policy was achieved.
Funding Under Section 51 of the Health and Disability Services Act 1993
6.132 When the public health system was restructured in 1993 a number of the operational
functions formerly carried out by the Department of Health passed to four Regional
Health Authorities. One of these functions included the tasks which Department
officials had carried out under the Social Security (Laboratory Diagnostic Services)
Regulations. The regulations were repealed by the Health Reforms (Transitional
Provisions) Act 1993. The new health system was introduced through the Health and
Disability Services Act 1993. In consequence of the restructuring of the health system
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the Government Policy for National Cervical Screening (1991) was updated in
October 1993 to take into account the structural changes. The change to the Policy
document has been outlined in the section on Term of Reference Two.
6.133 With the restructuring of the health system came a shift in attitude towards health
management. The new approach relied upon a series of contracts between health
funders and health providers to manage health delivery in place of the traditional
exercise of executive authority. The new Ministry of Health provided bulk funding to
the four Regional Health Authorities pursuant to contracts negotiated annually. In turn
the four Regional Health Authorities each contracted annually with health providers
for the services required to maintain the publicly funded health system. Within the
various contractual arrangements provision was made for medical laboratory
diagnostic services and cervical screening.
6.134 The contracts between the Regional Health Authorities and the health providers were
unable to be agreed immediately, and as an interim measure the Regional Health
Authorities obtained services from health providers by issuing notices under s.51 of
the Health and Disability Services Act 1993. The s.51 notices were issued on 23 June
1993 and took effect from 1 July 1993. They remained in force until the Regional
Health Authorities had negotiated a contract with their health providers. The contract
for laboratory diagnostic services between Gisborne Laboratories and the Midland
Regional Health Authority was not negotiated until the end of 1996; and the formal
document was not executed until 26 February 1997. By this time there had been a
change of ownership as Dr Bottrill had retired in March 1996. Throughout the time
that he practised under the new system the s.51 notices were in effect.
6.135 The Committee heard evidence from Dr Boyd of the Ministry of Health and Mr Mules
the former Chief Executive of the Midland Regional Health Authority about the
interim management of health services under the s.51 notices. Dr Boyd said that in
general the approach of the Regional Health Authorities to cervical screening was to
continue with the previous arrangements the Health Department had with health
providers. Mr Mules confirmed that this had occurred in regard to Midland Regional
Health Authority‟s arrangements for laboratory services. He also acknowledged that
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the Midland Regional Health Authority could have specified minimum quality
assurance provisions in the s.51 notice but had not done so.
6.136 Section 51 of the Health and Disability Services Act gave Regional Health Authorities
sufficient authority to enable them to require laboratories to become accredited with
TELARC or to adopt a quality control scheme of the Regional Health Authority‟s
design. Section 51(1) allowed the regional health authority to give notice of the terms
and conditions on which the authority would pay someone. Acceptance of payment
was deemed to constitute acceptance of the terms and conditions of payment. Any
change of terms and conditions required four weeks‟ notice. Section 4 set out the
scheme of the Act which was to provide for the people of New Zealand the best health
and the best care. A change of condition of payment to require TELARC accreditation
would have been entirely consistent with the Act‟s scheme. Provided the legal
requirements for notice and consultation were followed it would have been possible to
alter the s.51 notices to include this requirement.
6.137 No attempt was made to use the powers under s.51 of the Health and Disability
Services Act 1993 to impose quality control measures including TELARC
accreditation on laboratories. The situation remained as it was before the revocation
of the Social Security (Laboratory Diagnostic Services) Regulations. Rather than use
the powers available to it under s.51 to introduce improvements by requiring TELARC
accreditation of laboratories the Midland Regional Health Authority focussed on
achieving changes in health service provision through contractual negotiations with
health providers. This focus was in accordance with government policy. Mr Mules
informed the Committee that while it was possible for a Regional Health Authority to
manage using s.51 notices this was seen as undesirable and contrary to the Policy
Guidelines for Regional Health Authorities issued by the Minister of Health.
6.138 The Midland Regional Health Authority‟s approach may have been consistent with the
philosophy of the time, however, it made the introduction of TELARC accreditation as
envisaged in the Government Policy for National Cervical Screening (1991) and in the
1993 update of the Policy subject to the time taken to negotiate the general contracts
with laboratories. These negotiations were subject to delays unrelated to TELARC
accreditation. Mr Mules said in evidence that:
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“The providers were not opposed in principle to the quality standards
requirements proposed by Midland The major issues which required
resolution before the providers would agree to enter contacts were economic
rather than related to quality”.
6.139 The result of handling matters in this way was that the introduction of a quality control
measure for cervical screening which had always been seen as necessary, and which
initially was intended to be in place by 1993, was delayed until the end of 1996. This
delay enabled Dr Bottrill and the locums he employed from time to time to continue to
practice without quality control.
Has Unacceptable Under-Reporting Occurred Elsewhere?
6.140 The Committee cannot be satisfied that the systemic problems have not resulted in
unacceptable under-reporting in other regions in New Zealand. The Committee has
seen evidence in looking at the files of the Gisborne women affected that on occasions
slides read at Gisborne Laboratories are interspersed with slides read at other
laboratories. The other slides have sometimes been read as normal. The fact that
these normal slides appear with slides which were misread at Gisborne Laboratories as
normal, and were later found to be abnormal, is a cause for concern. The slides read at
other laboratories have not been reviewed, and so why they were read as normal is
unknown.
6.141 In New Zealand the Programme has prepared national statistics which determining the
national average for reporting high-grade abnormalities, and it has then checked to see
whether or not individual laboratories are within a particular range of that average.
These statistics were criticised by witnesses before the inquiry. This approach of
using the national average as a benchmark was also used by the Health Funding
Authority‟s National Laboratory Review study written by Mr Du Rose. The difficulty
with this approach is that because laboratory performance has never been monitored
and evaluated, there can be no certainty that the national average has not itself been
fundamentally influenced by under-reporting. Comparison with other countries (for
example Australia), is not always helpful because New Zealand has a higher rate of
cervical cancer. The notion of using national averages and seeing where individual
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laboratories were placed in comparison with that average was criticised by Professor
McGoogan. Her view was that a standard should be set and laboratories compared to
that standard. The difficulty, however, with setting a standard is knowing what is an
expected percentage of high-grade abnormalities. In New South Wales, the standard
for high-grade abnormalities is 0.5%, but there is a lower cervical cancer rate in that
state.
6.142 In the Committee‟s view there is little comfort in taking the national average and
seeing where laboratories lie in comparison with that average. Because it has been
derived from a time when laboratories were not monitored and evaluated, and not all
of them were TELARC accredited or subject to any compulsory quality control, it is
possible that the national average is not an accurate reflection of the rate of high-grade
abnormalities. For example Professor Skegg pointed out to the Committee that the
Sydney re-read of Gisborne smear tests had produced a high-grade reporting rate of at
least 2.5% and maybe 3.7%. Dr Bottrill‟s high-grade reporting rate was 0.5%. The
figures on which the national average is based include Dr Bottrill‟s rate of 0.5%. If,
however, the Sydney re-read high-grade rate is more correct the national average will
have been calculated using at least one false reporting rate. There would only need to
be a few similar incidences before the national average would become flawed. Thus,
using it as a measure to determine if there are other laboratories which are under-
reporting may not be helpful to answering this question. This is another reason why
the independent evaluation by the Otago University team must be carried out.
6.143 The Committee was concerned to know what reliance it could place on the National
Laboratory Review study written by Mr Du Rose. There was conflicting evidence on
whether or not the review should set the Committee‟s mind at rest regarding under-
reporting in other regions. The Ministry of Health relies upon the Du Rose study to
establish that there is no real cause for concern for women in other regions. However,
other witnesses and parties had reservations about the study.
6.144 Professor Skegg was one of these witnesses. He told the Committee that he had
doubts about the Review. He was critical of it being based only on cervical smears
and not on women. He said he considered that to be a fundamental weakness, because
the proportion of smears reported as abnormal can be markedly affected by the
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patterns of medical practice in different areas. Where it is the practice to take smears
at or after a diagnosis of cervical cancer there will inevitably be a higher reporting rate
than in those areas where the clinicians do not follow this practice. Professor Skegg
was also critical of there being no adjustment in the data for factors such as age or
socio-economic status or ethnicity. He considered that the use of places having either
a higher or lower than average Maori population was an extremely crude approach to
the problem. He said that given that there was a screening register with information
about the smear histories of individual women, he could not understand why the study
used proportions of smears and not women.
6.145 The use of places having a higher or lower than average Maori population as an
indicator of a higher or lower rate of high-grade abnormalities concerned the
Committee. The Committee noted that the information on the population of Maori
was derived from demographic statistics and deprivation statistics. It seems that the
Health Funding Authority did not use the Register to extract data about Maori women.
The Committee was concerned to learn if the Kaitiaki Regulations had been an
obstacle to using the Register. The Committee did not receive an adequate
explanation for why the ethnicity data on the Register were not used for this purpose.
The use of demographic and deprivation statistics seemed a clumsy tool by
comparison. This information should have been on the Register and it should have
been accessible to someone like Mr Du Rose.
6.146 The Committee raised this issue with Professor Skegg and asked him, as an
epidemiologist, what did he think of that approach.
“Q I actually asked Mr Du Rose specifically about a particular
laboratory in a region where there was a high Maori population. It‟s at
page 44 of his exhibit 1. It says there that the laboratory serves an area that is
greater than average with respect to the Maori women population aged 20-69,
however no figures are available in respect of the ethnicity of the screened
population. And Mr Du Rose said that they had taken the demographic
statistics and noted that the area had a population of Maori women higher
than average, and also the deprivation statistics when they had not gone to
the Register to look at the ethnicity of the women concerned. As an
epidemiologist what do you make of that approach?
A Well I think it was a very incomplete approach because the data are
on the Register, and I think it would have been desirable to say not just to
look at the area but to look at the actual women who had their smears read by
that laboratory who may actually come from more than one area.”
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6.147 More significantly Professor Skegg‟s view was that the Du Rose study may not have
identified Gisborne Laboratories as an outlier if it had been simply another laboratory
in the study. Professor Skegg referred to evidence from the Du Rose study which gave
Gisborne Laboratories a high-grade reporting rate of 0.57% which was above the 0.5%
threshold the study had set as a benchmark to identify outliers. Four laboratories in
New Zealand had a lower rate of reporting high-grade abnormalities than Gisborne
Laboratories. He also referred to evidence which had emerged from the Inquiry which
showed that of 216 women with high-grade abnormalities or cancer, Gisborne
Laboratories had reported only 37 of those as high-grade or cancer. Professor Skegg
said that this gave Gisborne Laboratories a false negative rate of more than 80% and
yet when the tables in the Du Rose study were looked at Gisborne Laboratories had a
high-grade reporting rate of 0.5%. Thus the laboratory did not emerge as a clear
outlier. Furthermore the study was not able to identify its very high false negative
rate. Professor Skegg said:
“If one looks at exhibit 1 in Mr Du Rose‟s evidence it can be seen that the Gisborne
laboratory had a percentage of high-grades of 0.57% which is above the threshold and
there were four laboratories in New Zealand with a lower reporting so here we have
on the one hand an extremely high false negative rate in Gisborne, you know I would
be surprised if there were any other study like this in the world which would show
such poor identification of high-grade abnormalities or cancer and yet when one
looks,… on the basis of the analysis he [Dr Bottrill] does not emerge as an outlier.”
6.148 The study left Professor Skegg uncertain as to whether or not there was a systemic
problem of under-reporting in New Zealand. His concern was that overall the rate of
high-grade reporting in New Zealand was much lower than the Sydney re-read rate
and that raised the question of whether or not there was systemic under-reporting:
“ Q: Either the Sydney report has a large number of false positives and it has over-
read a lot of slides or perhaps generally there is a tendency in New Zealand to under-
call slides or under-report slides
A: Yes or it could be a combination of those factors which may well be the most
likely explanation.
6.149 Ultimately Professor Skegg concluded :
“I was not comforted by Mr Du Rose‟s evidence to the extent that we could
deduce that what has happened in Gisborne is totally exceptional and that
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there might not be some other areas where similar problems could exist or
could have existed in the past.”
6.150 When Professor Skegg was asked what could be done to find out whether there are
such problems, his view was that the national evaluation should go ahead. Professor
Skegg stated :
“First of all I think that the work that the Health Funding Authority has
started could be developed, but I think the other thing which needs to be done
as a matter of some urgency is to start the national evaluation that has been
talked about for probably more than a decade, and that the Ministry of Health
commissioned last year but is still not fully underway.”
6.151 There were other technical difficulties identified regarding the way in which the
Du Rose study was set up. Indeed the study accepts that “ it is does not represent a
thorough assessment and evaluation of the quality of cervical cytology services”. Dr
Medley, who was engaged by the Health Funding Authority to assist with setting up
the study said the Committee could not rely upon it to reach a view as to whether or
not under-reporting was isolated to Gisborne. The Committee was left unsatisfied as
to whether or not under-reporting is or had occurred in other regions of New Zealand.
It considers that the question of the discrepancy between the Douglass Hanly Moir
Pathology high-grade reporting rate and the New Zealand average requires urgent
attention.
Conclusion
6.152 Ministry witnesses have described the Programme as successful because it has reduced
the rate of mortality and morbidity of cervical cancer in New Zealand. It may have
done so. However, in the Gisborne region, 16 women developed cervical cancer.
Their smear tests were read as normal at Gisborne Laboratories. The same smear tests
were subsequently re-read at Douglass Hanly Moir Pathology as high-grade or cancer.
In the Committee‟s view, a successful well-designed and well-run screening
programme does not allow something like this to happen.
6.153 The need for quality control of laboratories reading cervical cytology, quantitative
performance standards, a central computerised registration system linking cytology,
histology and cancer morbidity and mortality data, easy access to relevant reliable
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statistical information, routine monitoring and evaluation and the consequences of not
having these features in place are illustrated by what occurred in the Gisborne region.
These essential components of a screening programme were not present throughout
the time Dr Bottrill was in practice. Any attempts the Programme may have made at
achieving these essential components were not effective; that is shown by the
unacceptable level of under-reporting which occurred. A screening programme which
had these essential components in place would not have permitted Dr Bottrill to
practice as he did; it also would have been able to detect unacceptable levels of under-
reporting.
6.154 The systemic problems occurred because there was a failure to appreciate that a
cervical screening programme has certain essential features and that these must be in
place from the outset for the National Cervical Screening Programme to be effective.
The Programme did not begin with all the essential features in place; nor were they all
in place during the Programme‟s design stage, implementation stage or operational
stage. Secondly, this failure to recognise what features could not be compromised if
the Programme was to be effective meant that it was originally shaped to fit and later
forced to accommodate the prevailing ideologies on health delivery. Many of its
features and functions were split between regional health agencies (area health boards
and regional health authorities) and the central health agency (Department/Ministry of
Health) for reasons which were not conducive to a well run screening programme.
The end result was that the Programme was vulnerable to systemic failures.
Throughout the life span of the Programme it has been shaped to fit the Procrustean
bed of the prevailing ideologies on health delivery. This has created systemic
problems in the Programme and has been at the expense of its effectiveness.
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7. TERM OF REFERENCE FOUR
What changes have already been made to legislation, to laboratory or other processes, or to
professional practices, to address the risks of under-reporting of abnormalities in cervical
smears?
The Committee has interpreted this term of reference as applying to those changes that have
been made since Dr Bottrill retired from practice which will address the risk of under-
reporting of abnormalities. Therefore, the Committee will address changes made after March
1996. Some of these changes have already been referred to in other sections of the report.
Changes To The Programme’s Components
7.1 The changes include an ability to co-relate histology results with cytology results
(achieved in 1996); the reconfiguration of the 14 stand-alone screening registers into a
centralised register (achieved in 1997). It is now possible for a laboratory that reads
the cytology to request a correlation report between a patient‟s cytology and histology.
The report gives details of the histology results for all women for whom the laboratory
in question has read a cytology result within five years prior to a high-grade histology
result. Where there has been a negative smear report within five years prior to a high-
grade histology result that information is automatically highlighted. Unfortunately
s.74A limits others having access to this information. Access to information about
identifiable women on the Register is limited to the woman, her smear-taker and the
laboratory reading the smear test.
7.2 Since the Register has been reconfigured the data held on it is more reliable as a result
of the centralised system which has reduced the opportunity for regional deviation.
Technically data is now more easily available and more reliable for the purpose of
statistical analysis.
7.3 Since 1996/1997 TELARC/IANZ accreditation or accreditation with a similar
authority has been compulsory for laboratories reading cervical cytology. This change
was introduced through the Policy 1996 requiring laboratories to be accredited. The
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Policy was made a term of the funding agreements between the Ministry of Health and
the regional health authorities. The regional health authorities then made compulsory
accreditation a condition of payment under their agreements with the laboratories. As
each regional health authority completed its funding agreement with laboratories at a
different time the Committee cannot report precisely on the dates when all regional
health authorities completed these agreements. In the case of the Midland Regional
Health Authority the agreement was executed in March 1997. The evidence the
Committee has heard is that by 1997 all laboratories reading cervical cytology were
legally required to be accredited. In fact all the laboratories reading cervical cytology
had been accredited since February 1996.
7.4 The Committee considers that compulsory TELARC accreditation would have
reduced the unacceptable under-reporting of abnormalities in Gisborne, because it
would have prevented those practices of Dr Bottrill that are likely to have led to under-
reporting. In a more general sense, although TELARC/IANZ accreditation can reduce
the likelihood of under-reporting, errors can still occur in accredited laboratories.
Accreditation is focussed on process as opposed to assessing the substantive quality of
the work being performed. Accreditation can influence the substantive quality by
putting in place procedures that are likely to assist in good performance but that is all
it can do. Accreditation is not a substitute safeguard for comprehensive monitoring
and evaluation. The work of accredited laboratories must still be checked.
Changes To Legislation
7.5 New legislation regulating the medical profession was introduced in 1995. The
Medical Practitioners Act 1995 attempts to protect the health and safety of the public
by providing mechanisms to ensure medical practitioners are competent to practise
medicine. The Act permits the Medical Council to review a doctor‟s competence in
response to concerns raised by a patient, a colleague, a medical college or the Health
and Disability Commissioner.
7.6 The new Act introduces measures which should ensure that medical practitioners are
and remain competent to practise in their area of speciality. The Committee was
informed by the Medical Council witnesses that the Act has set up an inter-linked
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system whereby a registered medical practitioner is unable to practise in isolation or
without some monitoring of his or her performance. This is achieved by: mandatory
education and supervision for probationers; oversight of general registrants (with a
specific exemption in some cases for the first five years of the Act); re-certification for
vocationally registered doctors and conditions on practice of temporary registrants.
Vocationally registered doctors are those who were registered on the Register of
Specialists and Register of General Practitioners under the previous Act. Re-
certification programmes have been introduced and if vocationally registered doctors
do not comply with re-certification procedures (which are yet to be made compulsory)
they risk loosing their vocational registration or even risk suspension from the register
of medical practitioners.
7.7 The Act has also put in place new procedures regarding registration. Restrictions are
now placed on the Registrar‟s power to issue practising certificates if an applicant
cannot demonstrate competence or has been absent from practice for a significant
time. Practitioners who have been suspended are required to surrender their practising
certificates. A medical practitioner cannot practise without a practising certificate.
7.8 These provisions should assist in reducing the likelihood of a pathologist practising in
the same or a similar manner to Dr Bottrill.
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8. TERM OF REFERENCE FIVE
What other changes agreed to be implemented, either by the Government or by professional
organisations, will further address any risks of under-reporting of abnormalities in cervical
smears?
Legislative Change
8.1 The Government has agreed to look at legislative change to allow monitoring and
evaluation of the Programme to be carried out without the hindrance of the legal
obstacles which presently prevent this valuable exercise from being undertaken.
However, in the Committee‟s view the proposals it has seen do not go far enough,
especially given the period of time which has already elapsed. There is the potential
for the proposed change to become bogged down in long consultation and attempts to
reach a consensus view on an issue which does not lend itself to a solution which is
likely to be amenable to all interest groups. For this reason the Committee considers
that in their present form the proposed changes can not be described as something
which will further address any risks of under-reporting of abnormal smears. It,
therefore has considered the legislative proposals under term of reference six.
8.2 The national evaluation which was to be carried out by an independent team, and
which was unable to be performed due to difficulty in accessing information, has now
been taken over by Dr Peters and the unit within the Ministry which is responsible for
the Programme. It is believed that by carrying the project out as an internal audit the
problems that the independent evaluation team encountered in gaining access to
protected information will be avoided. The Committee has been told that the project is
complex and it could take up to seven months to complete preparatory work.
Dr Peters advises the Committee that she acknowledges previous work has been done
on the project, but she says much work now needs to be done to ensure that the
complications that have previously arisen do not impede the project in the future.
Whether or not this new plan to gain access to much-needed information actually
works, is still to be seen.
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Proposed Changes To The Operation Of The National Cervical Screening
Programme
8.3 When the National Cervical Screening Programme moved to the Health Funding
Authority it came under the control of Dr Julia Peters, a specialist in public health.
Since the incident of under-reporting in the Gisborne region has surfaced considerable
effort has gone into improving the National Cervical Screening Programme‟s
effectiveness. She is the person responsible for managing the National Screening
Team.
8.4 New policies and quality standards for the Programme were developed. These were
produced in draft form to the Committee during the Inquiry hearings. The Committee
found these draft documents impressive. Expert witnesses commented on them
favourably. Since the conclusion of the public hearings the Committee has received
affidavit evidence from Dr Peters to update it on further progress. It has learnt that
National Cervical Screening Policy Interim Operation Policy and Quality Standards
October 2000 has now been finalised. The Committee‟s view is that the policies and
quality standards, which this document contains, must be implemented as a matter of
urgency. Every support should be given to Dr Peters and her team to ensure that the
Interim Operation Policy is put into action. In the Committee‟s view the
implementation of this document will do much to improve the effectiveness of the
Programme.
8.5 In her affidavit Dr Peters described the current members of her team. The team
comprised a permanent staff allocation of 7.5 fulltime equivalent staff, four fulltime
fixed term contractors and approximately 6.5 fulltime equivalent consultants. She had
recently received approval from her general manager to appoint a finance manager and
an information technology manager to the team. They would be permanent
appointments. She had also received approval to appoint an additional staff member
for the National Cervical Screening Register. The Committee learnt that she had
advised her manager that a significant number of additional staff with clinical
epidemiological public health contracting and quality assurance and monitoring skills
were also required in the team. The Committee supports Dr Peters‟ views on this
point. While advisory groups can be of assistance, it is essential that the Programme
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has its own in-house qualified personnel. Epidemiological public health skills,
contracting skills and quality assurance and monitoring skills all relate to areas where
in the past, the Programme has been found wanting. The lessons to be learned from
the last decade are that reliance on advisory groups cannot provide the same input that
persons with these qualifications can if employed by the Programme. Furthermore the
Committee‟s views are consistent with the views expressed by the Cervical Screening
Advisory Committee in its final report in 1994 to the Minister. In that report the
Committee emphasised the importance to the Programme of skilled staff including
epidemiologists and biostatisticians.
8.6 It is clear from the evidence that between July 1998 to June 2000 there were no
specific performance measures for the Programme while it was with the Health
Funding Authority. The impetus that the experience at Gisborne gave to the Health
Funding Authority must be continued. It is important that the Programme receive all
the resources that Dr Peters believes essential for it to operate effectively.
8.7 Dr Peters also advised the Committee that by 23 November 2000 the national
laboratory contract has been completed and signed by all 12 community laboratories.
It makes compliance with the National Cervical Screening Policy Interim Operational
Policy and Quality Standards October 2000 and the IANZ Quality and Services
Standards for Medical Testing Laboratories a contractual requirement. The IANZ
Quality and Services Standards for Medical Testing Laboratories are included in the
contract as an appendix. In the Committee‟s view the national laboratory contract will
go a long way to ensuring quality performance of laboratories.
8.8 The Committee was advised that there has been a policy decision to impose three
minimum volume standards on laboratories. These are: each fixed laboratory site will
process a minimum of 15,000 gynaecology cytology cases; each pathologist will
report at least 500 abnormal gynaecological cytology cases, cytotechnical staff must
primary screen a minimum of 3,000 gynaecological cytology cases per annum. In the
Committee‟s view these minimum standards must be implemented. It considers them
to be good, however it notes that Dr Peters envisaged that during the next eight months
the national screening team would be working with all relevant parties to ensure
transition issues are appropriately managed. It is important that the minimum volume
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standards be imposed within six months. Minimum standards were first suggested a
decade ago.
8.9 The Committee notes that an independent monitoring and audit group for the
Programme is to be appointed. The Committee supports this. A contract has been
agreed between the University of Otago and the Health Funding Authority for the
establishment of a National Cervical Screening Programme Independent Monitoring
Group. The first quantitative monitoring for the Programme against the national
indicators in the Operational Policy and Quality Standards Manual is to commence
using data from women screened from 1 October to 30 January 2000. Reporting on
this data is due in April 2001. The Committee supports this and considers that it must
go ahead. An independent monitoring group is vital for the Programme‟s
effectiveness. It is also important that this group get full access to the information it
needs to enable the monitoring exercise to be carried out. The progress of the audit
and whether or not it reports by April 2001 need to be watched.
8.10 The Committee also considers that thought needs to be given to the European
Guidelines on Cervical Screening with a view to seeing whether or not those parts of
the Guidelines that are still not included in the Operational Policy and Quality
Standards Manual should be included. During the Inquiry the Committee heard from
Dr Cox who was very supportive of all the monitoring criteria in the European
Guidelines. The Committee is aware that these Guidelines are not in operation in a
number of European countries, however that does not detract from their value
8.11 Dr Peters advised that she was also considering what processes would be required to
establish a successful audit of the Programme. She noted that there needed to be: a
comprehensive audit framework for the Programme; customised audit for specific
provider groups; a comprehensive pre-audit data collection process was required;
auditors would need to be independent and appropriately trained; full audit reports
would need to be provided; the national screening team will need to develop processes
to address all issues revealed at audit. Added to this should be the qualification that
the Programme should ensure that the auditors will not encounter any legal obstacles
in carrying out the exercise. It is important that these audits are carried out.
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8.12 Dr Peters has advised the Committee that from 1 July 2001 the National Screening
Team will have operational, contractual and financial responsibility for the
Programme. She said that a National Cervical Screening Programme unbundling and
financial model had been developed and agreed within the Health Funding Authority
and the financial transfer approved. The Committee supports this entirely. It
recommends that by 1 July 2001 the Programme should be in a position where it has
complete responsibility for the operational contractual and financial management
within the team responsible for it (national screening team).
8.13 Dr Peters‟ evidence was that there is a move towards centralisation of all national
aspects of the Breast Cancer Screening Programme and the National Cervical
Screening Programme and development of quality assurance processes within both
programmes. The Committee has been advised that a separate national screening unit
has been formed and the structure was approved by the Director-General of Health on
7 November 2000. This unit will be staffed by 33 fulltime equivalent staff and will
undertake all the functions necessary for the national management of the two cancer
screening programmes. There will be six teams, namely Information Management,
Contracts and Finance, Maori Screening and Development, Breast Screen Aotearoa,
National Cervical Screening Programme, Quality Monitoring Analysis and Audit. The
most senior appointee will report to the Deputy Director-General of Public Health.
There will be a clinical director who will be a public health medicine specialist, and
ideally the two managers of the National Cervical Screening Programme and the
Breast Screen Aotearoa will also be public health medicine specialists. Provision has
also been made to appoint a part time epidemiologist to the quality monitoring
analysis and audit team. A number of part time consulting clinical experts will also be
appointed. Dr Peters outlined the advantage of the structure as being :
 It delivered internationally recognised key organisational components for
successful screening programmes;
 It provided clear reporting structures with a reasonable span of control for
managers;
 Its current reliance on contractors for critical positions will cease;
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 It provides professional development and management within an individual‟s
chosen career, thus providing a strong platform for recruitment and retention of
quality staff;
 The model is sustainable across a range of scenarios, for example differing health
service configurations;
 It established an experienced base and benchmarks which can be built onto should
other national screening programmes be developed.
8.14 Dr Peters advised that all current term and national screening team staff will be
confirmed in positions within the new national screening unit. Development of
detailed position descriptions has commenced and recruitment for vacant positions
will commence as soon as these are finalised. The Committee agrees with these plans.
It considers that the National Cervical Screening Programme should be run through a
centralised management system. The fragmentation that resulted from the earlier
models under the area health board and later regional health authority system was
detrimental to the Programme. A Programme of this nature is best run as a national
programme from a centralised office. It is particularly important that with the current
restructuring of the health sector and the use of 22 district health boards ( something
on which the Committee has received no updating evidence) the Programme should
not be subject to the threat of any further fragmentation.
8.15 The Committee considers that the changes that have come about as a result of the
Gisborne incident bode well for the Programme. It should be a much better
programme. It is unfortunate that it took a tragedy to bring this about. Many of the
changes that are now being implemented were recommended when the Programme
was being established.
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9. TERM OF REFERENCE SIX
All relevant proposals that could ameliorate any risks of under-reporting of abnormalities in
cervical smears and identify whether these are covered by the terms of reference four or five,
and whether further changes are needed.
Changes To Legislation
9.1 This proposal is referred to in Term of Reference Five. By far the most important
change which is required to make the National Cervical Screening Programme fully
effective is the removal of the legal barriers which are preventing the comprehensive
evaluation of the Programme from proceeding. Since the closure of the public
hearings the Committee has received affidavit evidence from the Ministry of Health
which informs it of proposed legislative changes to remove these barriers. Although it
appears the Government is committed to addressing the problem presented by these
legal difficulties, the information the Committee has received does not indicate how
the problem will be solved, nor do the proposals go far enough in grappling with the
difficulties which the proposed legislation is intended to overcome.
9.2 The advisory papers which the Committee have seen admit the existence of the
problem, set out options and suggest there should be wide consultation before
anything is done. There appears to be a concern that any departure from requiring a
woman‟s consent before her protected information is made available to an evaluation
team will be contrary to notions of informed consent, the recommendations made in
the Cartwright Report, and will cause women to leave the Programme to the extent
that there may be insufficient numbers left to make analysis of the information
worthwhile. No empirical basis to support this view is put forward.
9.3 The Committee has seen ample evidence to support the need for a comprehensive
national evaluation of the Programme which includes a cancer audit. It has also seen
ample evidence to convince it that no cancer audit is likely to go ahead, if consent of
the women being audited is required. For example Professor Skegg proposed carrying
out an audit of 42 women from the Gisborne region who had developed cervical
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cancer. The purpose of the audit was to enable the Committee to report on term of
reference one. At the time of the proposed audit it was thought that it was the only
way of learning whether or not there had been an unacceptable level of under-
reporting in Gisborne. Professor Skegg could not get ethics committee approval for
his audit unless he obtained the consent of the women concerned. There were
problems with identifying the women and obtaining their consent. In addition there
was the further problem that some of them might not consent to their medical case
being audited. He told the Committee that to require him to obtain the consent of the
women concerned posed significant problems for the audit because if only 30 women
out of 42 consented “ it would then be difficult or impossible to draw any firm
conclusions relating to term of reference one.” The Committee has heard from a
number of expert witnesses about the necessity to have a sufficient number of subjects
to be able to learn anything meaningful from any epidemiological study or an
evaluation exercise.
9.4 The cancer audit was identified by the Cervical Screening Advisory Committee as one
of the three high priority phases in the proposed 1997 evaluation which must go ahead.
As at March 2001 it still has not been completed. In a briefing paper to the Minister of
Health the Ministry accepted that the cancer audit will enable defects in systems or
treatment to be detected and will improve the Programme‟s safety and effectiveness.
However, the briefing paper sets out a number of concerns about the impact any
change in legislation will have on the privacy of women. The paper appears to be
driven by a concern that unless the privacy of women participating in the Programme
is given top priority women may stop participating in the Programme. It, therefore,
suggests that before any change is made there should be extensive consultation with
women and women‟s groups.
9.5 From the material the Committee has seen there appears to be an undue focus on
informed consent. The material quotes a recommendation from the Cartwright Report
which states that:
“ Permission might be sought for purposes other than implementing the
screening programme when research and evaluation of results was
contemplated. There should be consultation with authorities in the field of
privacy law to ensure that confidentiality will be guaranteed to all women
whose names and identifying details are contained on the register”
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However, it needs to be remembered that this recommendation was made in an
entirely different context and that the Cartwright Report was not inquiring into a
failure of a screening programme as has occurred in Gisborne. What has occurred in
Gisborne emphasises the need for effective monitoring and evaluation of all aspects of
the Programme.
9.6 The present circumstance is different from that which was considered in the
Cartwright Inquiry where women found themselves the subject of medical
experimentation without their consent. Here all that is involved is allowing persons to
examine information already obtained from women for the purpose of checking to see
if they were appropriately treated. In the Committee‟s view, this evaluation could be
viewed as a necessary part of the treatment the women have received, rather than
separate from it.
9.7 The lesson to be learned from unduly focussing on informed consent should have been
learned from the deficiencies of the opt-on screening registers. The choice of opt-on
registers was motivated by concerns to accommodate women exercising informed
consent. The result was sub-optimal registers which had to be replaced three years
later. There is little point in encouraging women to have smear tests if the quality of
the smear test diagnosis is never checked. Professor Skegg described the absence of
any comprehensive monitoring and evaluation exercise for the Programme 10 years
after its establishment as being “outrageous and unethical.” The Committee agrees
with this view.
9.8 The choice for the Programme is stark. Effective evaluation can not be guaranteed if
women‟s consent is required; if the right of an individual to consent to access to her
now-protected information is to predominate the Programme cannot effectively
evaluate its effectiveness and therefore the safety of all women participants is
potentially at risk.
9.9 There is nothing to be gained from adopting a procedure which requires an evaluation
team first of all to approach women to request access to their now-protected
information, but then, in order to preserve the value of the study, allows the team
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access to this information when consent is not forthcoming. A right of consent which
can be overridden in this way is not a true right of consent. It would be insulting to
women‟s intelligence to offer them such a hollow right.
9.10 There are many instances where personal privacy concerns must yield to the need to
gain access to private information. The issue is not one of giving general public
access to the National Cervical Screening Register. All that is being sought is for
medically qualified persons and their assistants to have access to the Register for the
purpose of checking that things were done properly.
9.11 Today quality assurance and audit and evaluation are so much a part of health delivery
that it could be said that it is no more than one of the components of the original
treatment, which happens to be carried out later on. On this view treatment which
does not include a subsequent audit could be seen as incomplete treatment. At present
there is no barrier to laboratories auditing their work on smear tests because they are
seen as the women‟s original health provider. A laboratory can access from the
National Cervical Screening Register a print-out of a woman‟s smear test history and
any recorded histology results for the purpose of carrying out an audit of its work.
Looked at realistically a woman‟s experience when her medical case, including smear
test history, is audited is no different whether that is done by the laboratory which read
her slide, or by an evaluation team which is engaged by the Ministry of Health. In
both cases she is unlikely to know that the audit has occurred unless something
irregular is found. In that case in the Committee‟s view she has a right to know of the
irregularity.
9.12 The Ministry of Health has received legal advice that the evaluation could go ahead
without women‟s consent, if the evaluation team lost its independent character and
became employed agents of the Ministry. Thus by a change of legal status the same
people would then be able to see the same information that they were previously
denied access to. An important exercise like the national evaluation should not turn on
such legal technicalities.
9.13 The Committee considers that the failure to carry out a cancer audit is denying those
women whose treatment has been irregular this knowledge. Women have a right to
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know whether or not their treatment has been irregular and as that is something that is
difficult for them to discover for themselves, and costly where the irregularity is
disputed, the Programme has an obligation to ensure that women receive this
knowledge. In its present form the Programme has no effective quality assurance for
its performance since the gold standard test for determining its effectiveness cannot be
carried out for legal reasons.
9.14 If this state of affairs is to continue, then women enrolling and enrolled in the
Programme should be clearly informed. They should be told that they are
participating in a Programme which cannot carry out the most effective means of
monitoring the Programme‟s success. Only then will they be in a position to exercise
informed consent to participate in the Programme. The Programme issues written
material which gives the impression that monitoring and evaluation of all aspects of
the Programme is being carried out. This is not correct. Some aspects of the
Programme are monitored and evaluated, however, nothing effective is being done to
monitor and evaluate laboratory performance. The exercises which are carried out are
nothing like the cancer audit. Women should be told that the monitoring and
evaluation which is now carried out is not able to detect misread smear tests. Without
this knowledge they can not exercise an informed choice as to whether or not to
participate in the Programme or opt for opportunistic screening on a more regular
basis than the three-year time frame used by the Programme. It is demeaning to
women to place an emphasis on their rights of informed consent (when considering
legislative change which removes their right to refuse access to their now-protected
information), and yet to not be open about the limitations of the Programme in which
they are encouraged to participate.
9.15 There appears to be a concern or fear that if women receive any bad news about the
Programme they will leave it. In the Committee‟s view while the concern is
understandable, it is not acceptable to act in this way. In the Committee‟s view it is
unethical to encourage women to participate in a programme without letting them
know of the Programme‟s limitations.
9.16 In the Committee‟s view the time has come for the Government to introduce
legislative change through primary legislation which will ensure the Programme
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functions effectively and is safe for women. To achieve this goal independent
evaluation teams of medically qualified persons must be given unhindered access to
now-protected information. Concerns about consumer ownership of the Programme
and how that might be harmed by reduced protection of information must take second
place. A simple legislative scheme contained in primary legislation which allows
comprehensive evaluations to occur, by both external teams or Ministry-led teams,
without the need for consent from the subjects or ethics committees is the best and
most effective solution.
Changes To Guidelines Under Which Ethics Committees Operate
9.17 The proposal is not covered by Terms of Reference Four or Five. The Committee has
had first hand experience of encountering difficulties in obtaining information which
requires ethics committee approval. Initially, Professor Skegg proposed a cancer
study as a way of providing evidence for the Committee to answer Term of Reference
One. He submitted a protocol to the Tairawhiti Regional Ethics Committee and late in
April that Committee gave consent for the study to proceed, but on the condition that
the consent of all the women first be obtained. Professor Skegg was of the view that
the study could not go ahead on this basis because of the need to have as complete a
sample of cases as possible. The purpose of Professor Skegg‟s study was to look at
the treatment of 42 women who had developed cervical cancer with a view to
discovering whether or not their treatment provided evidence of unacceptable under-
reporting by Gisborne Laboratories. The study never went ahead. The Committee
was able to rely on other evidence to be able to reach a conclusion under Term of
Reference One. However, if this other evidence had not been available, the
Committee could well have found itself in a position where a reliable means of
obtaining evidence to answer Term of Reference One was barred to it. Professor
Skegg was understandably critical of the role of ethic committees in this regard. He
expressed certain concerns including :
 That the committees suffered from a lack of oversight and they had not been
evaluated;
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 Regional ethics committees gave rise to a fragmented approach, as committees
around the country reached different decisions;
 Committees sometimes fail to see the cost of not doing things, for example the cost
in terms of lives lost because of failure to do a proper audit evaluation on the
Cervical Screening Programme.
9.18 Professor Skegg expressed concern about the way in which Committees approach the
Health Information Privacy Code and how they interpreted it. He made the point that
if current concerns about protection of privacy and ethics committees‟ approval had
prevailed at a time when the medical research upon which the article in Metro that led
to the Cartwright Inquiry was written, that inquiry may never have happened. It was
the assemblage of material by McIndoe et Al that was necessary for the independent
assessment of Professor Green‟s research. It was the McIndoe et Al research which
alerted the authors of the Metro article to the events at National Women‟s Hospital.
Without that research the Metro article could not have been written, and there may
never have been an inquiry into the unfortunate experiment at National Women‟s
Hospital. The medical research was written at a time when there was no Privacy Act
and the requirements for research to be subject to ethics committee approval was less
rigorous. Similar sentiments were expressed by Dr Cox.
9.19 Professor Evans initally disputed this possibility, however, as a result of information
provided to the Committee by Mr Rennie, counsel for the Royal College of Pathology
of Australasis all parties to the Inquiry, including counsel for the Regional Ethics
Committees, accepted that Dr McIndoe and the other medical practitioners who
contributed to the research were not involved in the care of the women upon whom the
research was based. Furthermore, the Cartwright Report records that Professor
Bonham referred to McIndoe et Al as reviewing the cases of other consultants without
approval. In the Committee‟s view Professor Skegg is most probably correct. If
McIndoe et Al were not participating in the care of the women involved they would
have had difficulty obtaining access to the women‟s records without their consent. As
it would be unlikely for persons in McIndoe et Al‟s position to approach women for
their consent the more likely outcome would have been that the research was not done.
Thus it seems that the Cartwright Inquiry may never have happened if the current
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ethical and legal requirements for conducting medical research had been in place at the
time the unfortunate experiment was being conducted at National Women‟s hospital.
9.20 Professor Skegg gave an example of the first statistical report omitting Wellington
data because the local ethics committee would not agree to its release. He described
them at times as being a barrier to research, and said that the culmination of ethics
committees, privacy concerns and s.74A had created a logjam insofar as a cancer audit
of the cervical screening was concerned.
9.21 The Committee also heard from Professor Evans who is a professor of bioethics at
Otago University, and is on the Otago Regional Ethics Committee. Having heard all
the evidence it has become clear to the Committee that at present, ethics committees
are operating under National Guidelines For Ethics Committees In New Zealand, these
are issued by the Minister of Health. They also take heed of international documents
such as the Helsinki Declaration and the CIOMS Guidelines.
9.22 The Helsinki Declaration and the CIOMS Guidelines do not expressly refer to audits
or evaluation of medical programmes or medical treatment. Professor Evans‟ view
was that they did, but that was by implication. When he was taken to these
documents, in the Committee‟s view, he did not provide a satisfactory explanation for
reading this implication into them. The Committee, therefore, does not find them
relevant to audits or evaluations of medical treatment.
9.23 The National Guidelines For Ethics Committees In New Zealand are somewhat
different. The difficulty with these guidelines is that they are not well expressed. The
Committee‟s view is that they need to be reconsidered. The confusion concerning
these guidelines arises because they contain three separate references to auditing and
monitoring. Clause 3.1 headed Research or Innovative Treatments Involving Human
Participants states : all proposed health and disability research investigations must be
submitted for appraisal by an accredited ethics committee where the investigation
involves human participants whether health or disability service consumers, healthy
volunteers, or members of the community at large, and … involves access to personal
information for purposes other than direct patient care or internal clinic audit. Thus,
clause 3.1 excludes internal clinical audit from ethics committee approval. Clause 3.3
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declares the matters not requiring ethical appraisal, and says that these are outlined in
greater detail in appendix 5 and that they include audit, which can be defined as
examining practice and outcomes in a particular time and place to see whether they
conform with expectations with a view to informing and improving management
rather than adding to general knowledge, and access to personal health information for
the purpose of monitoring the quality of care.
9.24 Appendix 5 which is headed Matters Not Requiring Ethics Committee Appraisal states
: Audit - where the audit is undertaken by or under supervision of senior members of
the healthcare or disability services team directly responsible for the care of that group
of health and disability support service consumers, and where there is no access to
confidential medical information by persons who do not owe a professional duty of
confidentiality to those consumers. Audit can be defined as examining practice and
outcomes in a particular time and place to see whether they conform with expectations
with a view to informing and improving management rather than adding to general
knowledge. This means that the patient‟s caregivers can use the patient‟s private
information to audit treatment. Whether or not an independent evaluation team
comprised of medical experts and their assistants can do so is questionable. These
persons would, as medical practitioners, owe an ethical duty to preserve the
confidentiality of the patient‟s information. However, there is no patient-doctor
relationship between the evaluation team and the patient. It is unlikely that the
evaluation team can be said to owe a professional duty of confidentiality to those
consumers, for the reason that there is no professional relationship between them.
9.25 Under the heading Access to Personal Health and Disability Information for the
Purpose of Monitoring the Quality of Care it is said – access to personal health and
disability information for the purposes of monitoring the quality care. At an
institutional level this may go beyond the processes involved in internal clinical audit
and may require expertise possessed by members not involved in a healthcare or
disability services team, for example expertise in statistical methods, pathological
diagnosis or classification. Ethical committee review is not required for this process
as long as all persons involved in the process are operating under the same
professional standard as the individual‟s caregiver. This may cover the independent
evaluation team. The medical practitioners working under that team would be
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operating under the same professional standards as the individual‟s caregiver. This
provision contemplates persons not involved directly in healthcare having access to
the information.
9.26 In the Committee‟s view the evaluation to be carried out by the independent
evaluation team fits the description of monitoring the quality of care. That provision
in appendix 5 also appears to provide for persons not directly involved in the
healthcare or disability services team to be involved in the monitoring process.
However, the ethics committees which applied these guidelines to the national
evaluation obviously considered that their approval was necessary, otherwise they
would have refused to deal with the application on the basis that their approval was
unnecessary.
9.27 The Committee considers that whoever drafted the guidelines obviously intended to
exclude monitoring and auditing exercises and therefore evaluations as well. It is
important, therefore, that the guidelines are expressed in such a way that they
accurately reflect the reality of how monitoring and evaluation is carried out in the
health sector today. The Committee has heard evidence that it is usual to use
independent contractors under short term contracts to carry out these tasks. This is
because the Ministry does not itself employ persons with all the necessary skills to be
able to carry out the exercises using in-house personnel. If this is so, and if it is also
the reality for other sections of the health sector, it is important that the guidelines to
ethics committees clearly exclude exercises of this type from the need for ethics
committee approval. Otherwise, the result will be, as can be seen from what has
occurred with the national evaluation, a logjam in which the monitoring and
evaluation exercise is either delayed or never carried out.
9.28 Since the closure of the public hearings the Committee has received an affidavit from
the Director-General of Health. This affidavit advises the Committee that the Ministry
has carried out extensive researches into practices overseas with a view to highlighting
general health ethical issues that have international support. Dr Poutasi advised the
Committee that an extensive comparison of ethical review practices overseas had
shown that international ethical review bodies do not and should not have a mandate to
ethically review service evaluation activities. She said that the international consensus
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that is currently emerging suggests that research and audit/quality assurance activities
need to be differentiated in order to guide ethics committees. That whereas ethical
oversight was appropriate in research activities, it was superfluous in quality assurance
activities. The Committee thoroughly supports this approach. The Committee has
seen at first hand how the intervention of ethics committees in audit and evaluation
activities can result in those activities not being carried out. Dr Poutasi noted that in
New Zealand and elsewhere ethics committees appear to believe that they have
jurisdiction in both research and quality assurance activities, and that it was desirable
to clarify when ethical oversight is appropriate. The Committee considers that this
must be done as a matter of urgency. For too long the evaluation of the National
Cervical Screening Programme has lain dormant. A major contributory factor to this
is the decisions of ethics committees. The Committee can see no logical reason for
involving ethics committees in approving audit / quality assurance activities. In
today‟s climate these activities should be seen as an integral part of a patient‟s
treatment. Indeed, what has occurred in regard to the evaluation of the National
Cervical Screening Programme has for the moment, in the Committee‟s view,
rendered the Programme unethical in the sense that women are participating in this
Programme without being told of its limitations.
9.29 The Committee also considers that further thought needs to be given to the status of
independently funded evaluation studies. The Committee learnt from Professor Skegg
that, as an epidemiologist, he considered that he would not be able to gain access to
sufficient information to allow him to carry out an independently funded evaluation
study of the Programme if he wished. The Committee considers that there is a place
for independently funded evaluation studies of medical treatment.
9.30 There is much to be gained from a health system where private medical researchers are
free to carry out such studies. For example, the Committee learnt from Professor
Skegg that, in his view, there was a need to do a study of breast cancer, because New
Zealand has the second-highest death rate in the OECD, and he believed that some of
the high mortality may be due to women not receiving the best treatment. He said that
someone needed to do an audit of the treatment of breast cancer in New Zealand. In
his view he did not think that anyone would even propose doing such a study at the
moment because they would not expect the ethics committees to approve it.
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9.31 Whether that statement about ethics committee approval is accurate or not, it is an
indication of how medical researchers currently view access to information. Granting
such persons access to information has an additional benefit where a health authority
may not be carrying out the task. For this reason the Committee thinks that when
reconsideration of the guidelines to ethics committees occurs, thought should be given
to making provision for private evaluation studies of medical treatments to go ahead in
a less confined environment than the researchers now believe applies.
9.32 The impression the Committee gained from Professor Evan‟s evidence was that there
was ethics committees were confused about the inter-relationship of the Privacy Act,
the Privacy health and Information Code and the Official Information Act. This
suggests to the Committee that the ethics committees would benefit from having at
least one legally qualified person on each regional committee.
9.33 The Committee was also concerned to hear that the presence of regional ethics
committee caused researchers problems when the research covered more than one
area. The different regional ethics committees have caused problems for the
Programme, for example the decision of the Wellington Ethics Committee not to
release data from that region to the Programme for the preparation of the First
Statistical report. This suggests that for national studies there should be a national
ethics committee.
10. TERM OF REFERENCE SEVEN
Any other issues which the Committee believes to be of particular relevance:
10.1 The Committee has interpreted this term of reference which permits it to report on
other issues of particular relevance to which in the context of terms of reference one to
six issues must be read in context with the other more specific terms of reference in
keeping with the ejusdem generis rule. It follows then, that the meaning of the more
specific terms of reference limit the apparently general meaning of term of reference
seven.
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Compensation For Women Affected
10.2 Counsel for the women affected made submissions to the Committee that under terms
of reference seven and eight the Committee should “urge the Government to consider
an appropriate method of compensating all those women who establish bona fide
claims”. This submission is difficult for the Committee to deal with. It is aware that
the women affected have been severely injured by the unacceptable under-reporting.
10.3 However, it considers that there are legal barriers which prevent the Committee from
making such a recommendation. First, it is questionable whether or not any
recommendation the Committee might make on compensation is relevant to the terms
of reference. Although term of reference seven is very wide, in the Committee‟s view
the general language of this term of reference must be read in context with the other
more specific terms of reference in keeping with the ejusdem generis rule. It follows
then, that the meaning of the more specific terms of reference limit the meaning of
term of reference seven.
10.4 The Committee has not been specifically directed to consider the impact of the
consequences of the unacceptable under-reporting on the women affected. The
essence of the terms of reference are to look at whether or not there has been under-
reporting, if this has occurred to report on what has led to it, and then to inquire into
what changes have already occurred and what changes still need to occur to reduce the
likelihood of unacceptable under-reporting occurring in the future. The impact of the
under-reporting on the women affected falls outside the specific terms of reference.
Therefore, insofar as the specific terms of reference limit the general language of term
of reference seven, it may be that the question of compensation is a topic which is too
remote for the Committee to consider under that term of reference.
10.5 Term of reference eight directs the Committee to take into account s.4 of the Health &
Disability Services Act. That section says nothing, which is relevant to questions of
compensation.
10.6 Secondly, and more importantly, there is the conundrum that a claim for compensation
as a result of medical misadventure or personal injury presents in the context of
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New Zealand‟s Accident Compensation legislation. Since 1972 New Zealand has
followed a legislative scheme which is based on the philosophy of not finding fault or
holding persons accountable under the common law for the injuries that they may
cause others on the ground that accidents are a fact of modern life; and that it is for the
community to carry this burden rather than to use common law actions to make the
culprit compensate the injured victim. The current prohibition against bringing legal
proceedings to recover compensation for personal injury is to be found in the Accident
Insurance Act 1998.
10.7 Section 394 of the Accident Insurance Act 1998 prohibits anyone in New Zealand
from suing for damages arising directly or indirectly out of personal injury covered by
the Accident Insurance Act or personal injury covered by the former Acts (being the
Accident Rehabilitation and Insurance Act, 1992, the Accident Compensation Act
1982 and the Accident Compensation Act 1972). Section 39 provides that a person
has cover under the Act if they suffer a personal injury in New Zealand that is caused
by an accident or by medical misadventure. Section 29 defines a personal injury. It
includes: death, physical injury and any mental injury, which is a consequence of a
physical injury. Under this legislation personal injury by accident and personal injury
by medical misadventure are two discrete categories of injury. The same injury
cannot be both a personal injury by accident and by medical misadventure. It was
possible for a personal injury to qualify as both under the Accident Compensation
Acts of 1972 and 1982. Section 28 defines an accident as including: a specific event
or series of events that involves the application of a force or resistance external to the
human body. Section 35 defines personal injury caused by medical misadventure as
being a personal injury caused by medical error or medical mishap. A medical error is
defined as a failure of a registered health professional to observe a standard of care and
skill reasonably to be expected in the circumstances. It includes a negligent failure to
diagnose an insured‟s medical condition. Medical mishap is an adverse consequence
of treatment. Medical error involves much the same tests as the common law applies
in negligence claims based on medical misadventure. Thus the factual circumstances
which will give rise to a successful common law claim will also meet the Act‟s
definition of “medical error”. This means that any injury the women affected have
suffered which would entitle them to compensatory damages under the common law
of negligence, or any other pertinent civil cause of action, will also come within the
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scope of s.394 of the Accident Insurance Act, and so they will be prohibited from
bringing any such claim.
10.8 The common law of negligence has traditionally followed a philosophy of finding and
apportioning fault on those persons who are found to have caused injury to another,
with the result that those who are found to be at fault are liable to compensate the
injured victim for the harm suffered. If the common law principles of negligence (and
other pertinent common law actions) were still available in New Zealand for cases of
personal injury, it is very likely that the women affected would bring legal proceedings
for compensatory damages against Dr Bottrill, Gisborne Laboratories Limited and the
Crown, which would be sued on behalf of the Department of Health/Ministry of
Health and the Minister of Health. However the no fault principle of the Accident
Compensation legislation prevents any such claims from being brought.
10.9 The Committee is aware that in Childs v Hillock [1994] 2 NZLR 65, a woman who
suffered pelvic inflammatory disease as a result of using certain intra-uterine
contraceptive devices sued the medical practitioner and the Minister of Health,
Director-General of Health and the Department of Health for negligently approving
and permitting the distribution of these devices in New Zealand. The Crown
defendants were sued for compensatory damages. Without making any examination
of the merits of the claims, the court struck out the claims against the Crown
defendants on the basis that they were for compensatory damages and the Accident
Compensation legislation did not permit such claims to be made. In Green v
Matheson [1989] 3 NZLR 564, Mrs Matheson who was one of the women badly
affected by what has come to be known as the unfortunate experiment at National
Women‟s Hospital (which was the focus of the Cartwright report), brought
proceedings in negligence against Dr Green, Dr Bonham, Dr Warren, the Auckland
Hospital Board and the University of Auckland. She alleged three causes of action :
trespass to the person, breach of fiduciary duty and negligence (including negligence
arising from administrative shortcomings resulting in a lack of an informed consent).
Mrs Matheson claimed compensatory and exemplary damages. Her claim for
compensatory damages was struck out by the court on the ground that all the
consequences for which she was suing were physical or mental consequences within
the meaning of the Accident Compensation Act 1982. They were all part of the
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alleged medical misadventure and the damages claimed arose directly or indirectly out
of it. For that reason, Mrs Matheson could not sue for compensatory damages as a
result of the damage she had suffered, which included contracting cervical cancer as a
result of a failure to treat properly the pre-cancerous abnormality of her cervix. The
cases of Green v Matheson and Childs v Hillock were used as test cases to determine
if a legal claim could be brought and in that sense they were representative of other
claims brought by other women who had suffered the same injury.
10.10 In Brownlie v Good Health Wanganui (Unrep 10/12/98 CA 64/97) a claim in
negligence was brought by eighth plaintiffs (the majority of whom were women) who,
between 1982 and 1993, had each had a histology sample taken for pathological
examination and diagnosis for abnormality, particularly for the presence of cancerous
or pre-cancerous conditions. The pathologist who carried out the examinations
detected no malignancy or pre-cancerous condition, and the plaintiffs were so advised.
Subsequently, following an audit of the pathologist‟s work and the hospital‟s
laboratory practices and procedures, the hospital became aware that a number of
patients, who had undergone surgery since 1982, may have been misdiagnosed as a
result of incorrect pathology reports prepared by the pathologist. There was a
possibility that some 54 persons, (including the eight plaintiffs), may have been
misdiagnosed during those years. The remedies the eight plaintiffs sought in their
claim included compensatory damages for the injuries they had suffered as a result of
their disease not being detected, and therefore going untreated. Their claims for
compensatory damages were struck out on the ground that such claims were prohibited
by the Accident Compensation legislation.
10.11 Because the Accident Compensation legislation removed the payment of lump sums
for pain and suffering in 1992, the women affected will be eligible for little, if any,
financial entitlements under the legislation. Those women who are not wage earners
will not be eligible for earnings related compensation. Medical treatment and
rehabilitative care are the most that the women affected are likely to receive. In other
jurisdictions, if they were able to establish claims for compensatory damages they
would be likely to receive large financial payments.
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10.12 The submission made by counsel for the women affected that the Committee should
urge the Government to consider an appropriate method of compensating the women,
is in essence a submission that: the Committee should urge the Government to treat the
women affected differently from any other person who suffers personal injury as a
result of an accident or medical misadventure; that in this particular instance the
Committee should urge the Government to depart from the general philosophy of
Accident Compensation legislation which prevailed in this country since 1972, and
which in the past has prevented women like Mrs Matheson, Ms Childs and
Mrs Brownlie from suing for compensatory damages.
10.13 Equal treatment under the law is a keystone principle of our legal system. It is difficult
to see any reason why in principle the women affected by the unacceptable level of
under-reporting at Gisborne should be treated differently from the women in Childs v
Hillock and Green v Matheson, the plaintiffs in Brownlie v Good Health Wanganui, or
indeed any other person in New Zealand who suffers a personal injury. Because a
recommendation to pay compensation would be contrary to the legal principles which
have been operating in New Zealand since 1972; and it would mean the women
affected were treated differently from other persons who have suffered a personal
injury either by accident or by medical misadventure the Committee considers it is
unable to make any recommendation on compensation.
10.14 An additional reason against the Committee making a recommendation to compensate
the women affected is that the Committee conducted its hearings for the purpose of
answering the terms of reference. An inquiry under the law of negligence would
involve looking at: the existence of a duty of care (which involves questions of
proximity and public policy), causation, remoteness of damage, contributory
negligence and the negligence of third parties. None of these issues have been directly
traversed in evidence, or submissions. Therefore, the Committee is in no position to
make any comment on whether or not the women affected have established, or can
establish, bona fide claims. Furthermore, to attempt this exercise would involve the
Committee commenting on who it considered to be at fault. It is beyond the power of
this Committee of Inquiry to make findings of blame.
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10.15 It is possible in New Zealand to bring common law actions in negligence and other
causes of actions for exemplary (punitive) damages. This is possible because
exemplary damages are different from compensatory damages. Exemplary damages,
unlike compensatory damages, are not awarded to compensate the plaintiff, but to
punish the defendant for high-handed disregard of the plaintiff‟s rights, or similar
outrageous conduct. For this reason the New Zealand courts have found that claims
for such damages are outside the scope of the Accident Compensation legislation. It is
not appropriate for the Committee to make any recommendations in respect of
payment of moneys which could be seen as akin to exemplary damages. First, there
has been no request from the women affected for such damages. Their submission is
to urge the Committee to recommend to the Government a payment of compensation.
Secondly, as the purpose of exemplary damages is to punish the defendant, any
recommendation must be based on findings of fault and blame. It is not appropriate
for this Committee to make findings of fault or blame in respect of any person.
10.16 The Committee has provided a lengthy account of why it cannot recommend
compensation for the women affected because it considers they are entitled to a full
explanation. They relied on a screening programme to protect their health. In this
instance the screening programme has been unable to deliver to them the benefits
which would usually flow from a well-designed and well-run screening programme.
Access To Maori Women’s Data And The Kaitiaki Regulations
10.17 In the course of the public hearings the Committee learned that there have been
occasions when obtaining access to Maori women‟s data on the National Cervical
Screening Register has been delayed by the National Kaitiaki Group which is
responsible for managing applications under the Kaitiaki Regulations. These
regulations control access to aggregate non-identifiable data of Maori women on the
Register. The Ministry of Health now submits that these regulations have not been
responsible for the delays in obtaining this data.
10.18 However, the Committee has seen evidence which shows that at times the Kaitiaki
Regulations have frustrated the Ministry‟s ability to utilise Maori women‟s data. A
Ministry memorandum of April 1996 headed National Cervical Screening Programme
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– An Overview comments on the Kaitiaki Regulations. Under the heading “Protection
of Data” the Ministry‟s memorandum records that because of the sensitivity around
the personal nature on the Register, and a desire to encourage Maori women to accept
the Register, s.74A of the Health Act had been introduced to allow special treatment of
women‟s data on the Register, and subsequently under this section the Kaitiaki
Regulations were promulgated. The Kaitiaki Regulations were initiated as a
compromise that was reached at the time the Register changed from opt-on to opt-off.
Maori women at that time were concerned to have special protection for their data
because of its significance to them and the importance of the sanctity of Te Whare
Tangata. Their first choice would have been to have an entirely separate register; the
Kaitiaki Regulations were a compromise.
10.19 The memorandum notes that one impact of the Kaitiaki Regulations has been to
reduce the supply of all data by ethnicity on the basis that this would, by default,
identify Maori data. It then states that Pacific Island women are now seeking similar
protection, and that although the Minister was opposed to a regulation, a group had
been set up to approve requests for the release of Pacific Island data on an interim
basis.
10.20 Under the heading “Monitoring and Evaluation” the Ministry‟s memorandum refers to
what is described as “lock-out” of ethnic data and states that this has frustrated the
Cervical Screening Advisory Committee.
“Because of the way the Programme has developed, there have been
significant problems extracting data to report on progress. With
reconfiguration it is expected that the situation will improve significantly.
This lack of data (compounded by the lock out of ethnic data) has been
frustrating for the Cervical Screening Advisory Committee and also
identified as an obstacle by the Committee reviewing screening
recommendations. CSAC‟s terms of reference explicitly include advice on
monitoring and evaluation. Longstanding Committee members are of the
view that they have given all the advice on this they can, but the Ministry has
failed to act on it. The review of cervical screening policy has been done in
the absence of data on current performance of the National Cervical
Screening Programme. (The usefulness of data would be limited in any case
by the fact that prior to the introduction of an opt-off policy, numbers on the
Register were too small to be of much use for monitoring.)
10.21 The Committee also learnt in evidence from Ms Earp of the Ministry of Health, that
even Ministry of Health officials have to apply to the Kaitiaki Group to access
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aggregate data on Maori women from the Register. Professor Skegg was asked to
comment, as an epidemiologist, on these circumstances. He saw them as inhibiting the
delivery of a high quality programme to Maori:
“Q The Committee of Inquiry has learnt from the witness Ria Earp that
even the Ministry of Health has to apply to the Kaitiaki Group to access
summary data on Maori women. From your experience as an epidemiologist,
given that this information is health information on registers run by the
Ministry of Health, what comment do you have to make on the requirement
that the Ministry itself must apply to the Kaitiaki Group for permission to
access the data.
A I can see that this is a legal requirement under the provisions made,
but I must say I think it was unwise for them to be framed in that way. My
concern is that, I suspect that, although I cannot speak for Maori women, that
many Maori women would be concerned if mechanisms such as these were
inhibiting the delivery of a high quality programme to Maori as well as non-
Maori.”
Professor Skegg also told the Committee that he was aware that some proposals for
evaluating the Programme were not going ahead in their full form because the Kaitiaki
Group had declined access to the information.
“Q Does the restriction the Kaitiaki regulations place on accessing
Maori women‟s data, summary data, have a detrimental impact on the
Screening Programme?
A I think it does. I think that probably researchers and people
involved in health evaluation are inhibited from even asking for the
information because they are aware that there is this mysterious group that
controls it. I am conscious today even some proposals for evaluating the
Screening Programme are not going ahead in their full form because the
Kaitiaki Group has declined access to information which does not identify
women.”
10.22 The Committee understands the particular sensitivity of Maori women to strangers
having access to data on the National Cervical Screening Register. It also understands
Maori concerns that aggregate data of Maori women may be applied in a way which
reflects negatively on Maori. However, at the same time, it needs to be realised that
for the Programme to function effectively the more data that is available to a person
working on the Programme, and indeed other medical researchers, the more effective
the Programme will be.
10.23 The Committee is concerned to learn that Ministry of Health officials who were
working in the Programme could not access aggregate Maori data. The rate of
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cervical cancer in Maori women is far higher than in other women. It is only by
learning as much as possible about the incidence of cervical cancer in Maori women
that this disparity can be addressed, and hopefully reduced. Once again, the
Programme‟s needs in order for it to function effectively as a medical programme
appear to be at odds with non-medical philosophies and concerns. The extent to which
the Programme‟s medical features are compromised for non-medical reasons has an
impact on how it operates as a medical programme. This has to be accepted. The
Committee thinks that it would be worthwhile, when the question of access to now-
protected information is reconsidered, that the question of access to aggregate data of
Maori women be looked at afresh. Consideration needs to be given to whether or not
the sentiments expressed in the Ministry‟s memorandum of April 1996 are correct, and
whether there is a detrimental impact on the Programme. If so, Ministry officials
should have better access to this data.
10.24 One possibility that was put forward in submissions to the Committee is that an
exception be made to the regulations where research is being done under the
Programme for the benefit of the Programme, for example the evaluation to be carried
out by the independent evaluation team, or an audit of the type suggested by Professor
Skegg, or even simply the compilation of statistical reports for the Programme. This
approach would mean that the focus of the Kaitiaki Group would be on applications
for release of data to “outsiders” where the need for protection is probably at its
greatest, rather than to those who have an obvious and legitimate need of the
information to ensure the running of the Programme.
Programme’s Inability To Control Smear-takers
10.25 In the course of reading material concerning proposed legislative change to s.74A of
the Health Act, the Committee has discovered an issue which it considers to be of
particular relevance to Term of Reference Seven.
10.26 A memorandum the Ministry prepared for the Cabinet Social Policy and Health
Committee to discuss options to overcome the barrier s.74A presented to the planned
national evaluation raised particular concerns for the Committee. One of the
suggested means of overcoming the section‟s prohibition on access to information was
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to obtain routine consent to use of now-protected data for audit purposes at the time
women enrolled on the Register. The memorandum further states, however, that there
are approximately 5,000 smear taking providers and that most of them do not have a
contractual relationship with the Programme and, therefore, they cannot be compelled
to use the appropriate National Cervical Screening Programme form. This
memorandum suggests to the Committee that the Programme has no means of
controlling the information smear takers give to women about the Programme, since it
has no confidence smear takers will properly inform women that if they are enrolled
on the Register their information will be available for monitoring and evaluation
purposes.
10.27 This raises a wider issue. If the Programme cannot control what information smear
takers pass on to women, how can the Programme be certain that smear takers are
properly informing women of their right to opt-off the Register? The essence of the
Programme, since the Register became opt-off, is that all women are enrolled on the
Register, except for those who decide to opt-off. This requires all women to be told of
their right to opt-off. Furthermore, in order for women to make an informed choice
about whether or not to opt-off they need to know what is entailed in remaining on the
Register. They depend upon their smear takers to give them this information. But, it
seems the Programme has no control over what smear takers tell women. Thus there
are probably smear takers who are not telling women of their choice to opt-off the
Register or if they are, they may not be fully informing them about what the decision
to remain on the Register entails. Therefore women are not able to make an informed
choice. The implied consent to be on the Register which is derived from a woman not
deciding to opt-off the Register may not be an informed consent. The Committee
considers this issue requires urgent attention.
10.28 In the course of the Inquiry the Committee learned that smear tests for women in
Gisborne are now being read at Medlab Hamilton Limited (Medlab Hamilton). This
company purchased the business of Gisborne Laboratories Limited and now runs it as
Gisborne Medical Laboratory Limited (Medlab Gisborne). Cervical cytology is no
longer read at Medlab Gisborne (the former Gisborne Laboratories Limited). The
Committee learned that the records of women patients of Gisborne Laboratories
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Limited were stored at Medlab Gisborne. The storage was not ideal, and there seemed
to be no way by which Medlab Hamilton could readily retrieve these records.
10.29 Medlab Hamilton carries out the practice of reviewing previous smear tests when it
reads a smear test as abnormal. The advantage of this exercise is that it may reveal
any earlier smear tests that have been misread. Although Medlab Hamilton carries out
this practice in respect of women patients whose records are stored at Hamilton, the
“look-back” exercise is not regularly carried out for those patients from Gisborne
whose smears are read at Hamilton, but who are likely to have records of earlier
smears stored at Gisborne. The Committee understands that this is because the records
are not easily retrieved. This means that for those women the opportunity to carry out
a look-back exercise to see whether or not earlier smears have been misread is
reduced.
10.30 The Committee was concerned to hear this. It considers that a legal obligation is
needed to require the vendors of laboratory businesses (either through the sale of that
laboratory‟s business or through a sale of shares in the company owning the
laboratory), to be held legally responsible for ensuring that the records of their former
patients are stored and archived in such a way that the information is readily accessible
and retrievable by any laboratory which subsequently reads these patients‟ smear tests.
How this legal obligation can be imposed on the vendors will need to be determined.
Any present absence of legal authority to impose such an obligation should not be a
deterrent.
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11. TERM OF REFERENCE EIGHT
Recommendations, consistent with section 4(a) of the Health and Disability Services Act
1993, as to any future action the Government or its agencies should consider taking.
Counsel assisting the Committee submitted in respect of Term of Reference Eight that it is a
sad fact that practically all of the most obvious recommendations that might be suggested
have either already been made or have been generally recognised for years as being important
features of cervical screening programmes. The Committee fully agrees with this submission.
Many of the recommendations the Committee makes in this report have been made before.
Many of the improvements which have recently been made to the Programme in response to
the Gisborne incident (described in Term of Reference Five) were also recommended from
the early stages of the Programme.
11.1 The remaining two phases of the national evaluation designed by the Otago University
team must proceed. Until those phases are completed the Programme‟s safety for
women cannot be known. It is imperative that this exercise is completed within the
next six months. Particular attention should be given to the discrepancy between the
average reporting rate of high-grade abnormalities of Douglass Hanly Moir Pathology
(2.5%-3.7%) for the re-read of the Gisborne women‟s smear tests and the current New
Zealand national average for reporting high-grade abnormalities (0.8%). Unless this
exercise is carried out the possibility that the national average is flawed and that there
is a systemic problem of under-reporting in New Zealand laboratories cannot be
excluded.
11.2 If the national evaluation throws doubt on the accuracy of the current national average
then the Committee recommends that all women who are or who have participated in
the Programme should be invited to re-enroll on the register as new entrants and they
should be offered two smear tests 12 months apart. Women who have never enrolled
on the Register or who have had their names removed from the Register should be
invited through notices in the print media to also go through the process of having two
smear tests twelve months apart.
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11.3 A comprehensive evaluation of all aspects of the National Cervical Screening
Programme which reflects the 1997 Draft Evaluation Plan developed by Doctors Cox
and Richardson should be commenced within 18 months. This exercise should build
upon the three phase evaluation referred to in recommendation 11.1.
11.4 The Policy And Quality Standards For The National Cervical Screening Programme
and the Evaluation and Monitoring Plan For The National Cervical Screening
Programme prepared by Dr Julia Peters and her team must be implemented fully
within the next 12 months.
11.5 There needs to be a full legal assessment of the Policy And Quality Standards For The
National Cervical Screening Programme and the Evaluation and Monitoring Plan For
The National Cervical Screening Programme to ensure that the requisite legal
authority to carry out these plans is in place.
11.6 The National Cervical Screening Programme should be thoroughly evaluated by
lawyers to determine whether or not those persons charged with tasks under the
Programme have the necessary legal authority to discharge them.
11.7 The National Cervical Screening Programme should issue annual statistical reports.
These reports should provide statistical analysis to indicate the quality of laboratory
performance. They should also provide statistical analysis of all other aspects of the
Programme. They must be critically evaluated to identify areas of deficiency or
weakness in the program. these must be remedied in a timely manner
11.8 Meaningful statistical information should be generated from both the National
Cervical Screening Register and the Cancer Register on a regular basis. Attention
must be paid not only to laboratory reporting rates but also to trends and the incidence
of the disease, assessed by regions that are meaningful to allow some correlation
between reporting profiles laboratories and the incidence of cancer. Because cervical
smear tests may be read outside the region in which the smear test is taken, a recording
system needs to be devised which identifies the region where smears are taken.
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11.9 The compulsory setting of a minimum number of smears that should be read by
laboratories each year must be put in place. The proposal to impose three minimum
volume standards on laboratories must be implemented. These are : each fixed
laboratory site will process a minimum of 15,000 gynaecological cytology cases; each
pathologist will report at least 500 abnormal gynaecological cytology cases,
cytotechnical staff must primary screen a minimum of 3,000 gynaecological cytology
cases per annum. This should be implemented within 12 months.
11.10 There needs to be a balanced approach, which recognises the importance of all aspects
of the National Cervical Screening Programme. The emphasis on smear taking and
increasing the numbers of women enrolled on the Programme needs to be adjusted.
11.11 The culture which was developing in the Health Funding Authority regarding the
management of the National Cervical Screening Programme under the management of
Dr Julia Peters needs to be preserved and encouraged now that the Health Funding
Authority has merged into the new Ministry of Health.
11.12 The National Cervical Screening Programme must be managed within the Ministry of
Health as a separate unit by a manager who has the power to contract directly with the
providers of the Programme on behalf of the Ministry. The Programme‟s delivery
should not be reliant on the generic funding agreements the Ministry makes with
providers of health services. For this purpose the unit will require its own budget.
11.13 The National Cervical Screening Programme should be under the control of a second
or third tier manager within the Ministry. The Manager of the unit should as a
minimum hold specialist medical qualifications in public health or epidemiology. As
a consequence of the Programme‟s link with the Cartwright Report it has always had a
female national co-ordinator. While there are understandable reasons for having the
Programme managed by a woman it is not necessary for cervical screening
programmes to have female managers. The cervical screening programme in New
South Wales is managed by a male medical practitioner. The time has arrived for the
National Screening Programme to be treated as a medical programme which is part of
a national cancer control strategy. In the past its link with the Cartwright Report has at
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times resulted in its purpose as a cancer control strategy being compromised for non-
medical reasons.
11.14 The Health Act 1956 should be amended to permit the National Cervical Screening
Programme to be effectively audited, monitored and evaluated by any appropriately
qualified persons irrespective of their legal relationship with the Ministry of Health.
This requires an amendment to s.74A of the Health Act to permit such persons to have
ready access to all information on the National Cervical Screening Register.
11.15 There needs to be a reconsideration of the Kaitiaki Regulations, and the manner in
which those regulations currently affect the Ministry of Health gaining access to
aggregate data of Maori women enrolled on the National Cervical Screening Register.
The Ministry of Health and any appropriately qualified persons engaged by it (be they
independent contractors, agents or employees) require ready access to the information
currently protected by the Kaitiaki Regulations in order to carry out any audit,
monitoring or evaluation of the Programme.
11.16 The present legal rights of access to information held on the Cancer Registry need to
be clarified. The Ministry and any appropriately qualified persons it engages to carry
out (external or internal) audits, monitoring or evaluation of cervical cancer incidence
and mortality require ready access to all information stored on the Cancer Registry
about persons registered as having cervical cancer.
11.17 The Health Act 1956 requires amendment to enable the Ministry of Health and any
appropriately qualified persons it engages to carry out (external or internal) audits,
monitoring or evaluation of cervical cancer incidence and mortality to have ready
access to all medical files recording the treatment of the cervical cancer by all health
providers who had a role in such treatment.
11.18 There needs to be change to guidelines under which ethics committees operate to
make it clear that any (external and internal) audit, monitoring and evaluation of past
and current medical treatment does not require the approval of ethics committees.
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11.19 There should also be a review of the operation of ethics committees and the impact
their decisions are having on independently funded evaluation exercises and on
medical research generally in New Zealand.
11.20 Ethics Committees require guidance regarding the application of the Privacy Act and
the Privacy Health Information Code. Ethics Committees need to be informed that the
interpretation of legislation relating to personal privacy is for the agency holding a
patient‟s data to decide. They would, therefore, benefit from having at least one
legally qualified person on each regional committee.
11.21 Ethics committees require guidance regarding the weighing up of harms and benefits
in assessing the ethics of observational studies.
11.22 A national ethics committee should be established for the assessment of multi-centre
or national studies.
11.23 The procedures under which ethics committees operate need to be re-examined.
Consideration should be given to processes to allow their decisions to be appealed to
an independent body.
11.24 The National Cervical Screening Programme requires its own system to deal with
complaints regarding the Programme‟s delivery. It also needs to have in place a user-
friendly system which can respond to complaints of Programme failures, such as
under-reporting. The difficulty that witness A experienced in having her medical
misadventure recognised as a failure of the Programme and a failure of Gisborne
Laboratories must be avoided in the future.
11.25 The National Cervical Screening Register needs to be electronically linked with the
Cancer Register.
11.26 Performance standards should be put in place for the National Cervical Screening
Register and the Cancer Registry. The currency of the data on both Registers needs to
be improved. The Cancer Registry should be funded in a way that enables it to
provide timely and accurate data that is meaningful.
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11.27 Standards for the National Cervical Screening Programme should be reviewed every
two years and more frequently if monitoring indicates that some of the standards are
inappropriate.
11.28 The Government in consultation with other bodies or agencies needs to ensure that
there are sufficient trained cytotechnologists and cytopathologists and that there are
appropriate training sites for them. There should also be a review of the training
requirements and maintenance of competence of smear test readers and
cytopathologists.
11.29 The Medical Laboratory Technologists Regulations 1989 should be amended to permit
only registered medical practitioners with specialist qualifications in pathology and
appropriate training in cytopathology or appropriately trained cytoscreeners to read
cervical smear tests
11.30 Legal obligations in addition to those mandated by IANZ must be imposed on all
laboratories reading cervical cytology requiring them to retain records of patients‟
cytology and histology results (including slides, reports and any other material relating
to the patient) in safe storage for a period of no less than five years from the date on
which the results were reported. Secondly all laboratory owners must be made legally
responsible for ensuring that a patient‟s records are readily accessible and properly
archived during the five year storage period irrespective of changes in the laboratory‟s
ownership through a sale of shares or a sale of the laboratory‟s business. The vendor
of the shares or the laboratory‟s business should carry a primary legal responsibility to
store the records, though the option to transfer this legal responsibility as a condition
of the sale to the purchaser should be permitted. Similar provisions should apply to
laboratory amalgamations. In this case the newly merged entity should be responsible
for storing the records.
11.31 The cervical smear test and histology histories of women enrolled on the National
Cervical Screening register should be made electronically available online to all
laboratories reading cervical cytology.
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11.32 Standards must be developed for ensuring the accuracy of laboratory coding and this
aspect of the National cervical Screening Register must be subject to an appropriate
quality assurance process
11.33 The National Cervical Screening Programme should work towards developing a
population based register and move away from being the utility based register that it
now is.
11.34 There should be a legal obligation on the Accident Compensation Corporation, the
Medical Council and the Health and Disability Commissioner to advise the National
Cervical Screening Programme‟s manager of complaints about the professional
performance of providers to the Programme when complaints are made to those
various organisations about the treatment of a patient in relation to the Programme.
11.35 Consideration should be given to the addition of an express requirement in the
provisions governing medical disciplinary proceedings which would oblige the
Tribunal seized of the facts of any given case specifically to consider whether there are
any grounds for concern that there may be a public health risk involved. If that
concern is present the Tribunal should be required to inform the Minister of Health.
11.36 There should be an exchange of information between the Accident Compensation
Corporation and Medical Council regarding claims for medical misadventure and
disciplinary actions against medical practitioners.
11.37 It is recommended that the Programme liase with the Royal College of Pathologists of
Australia. In its submissions the Royal College advised that it believed that the
collaborative relationship the college had with the Federal Government in Australia
might be a model worth consideration by the Inquiry. It was suggested that it was
appropriate to use medical colleges as an over-arching body to provide advice on
issues. The benefit of this is, if the College is asked to provide an opinion on issues
such as professional practice, quality or standards, it has access to the views from
multiple professionals and also a critical evaluation of current literature in
contemporary standard practices. It is suggested that the National Cervical Screening
Programme, which has achieved a great deal, would benefit from greater professional
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input at a College level. In particular, it is suggested that a National Cervical Cancer
Register and a Cervical Cancer Mortality Review process be a means of continually
evaluating the Programme‟s effectiveness. The Committee supports the College‟s
submission and recommends that it be acted upon.
11.38 The Programme must provide women with information to enable them to make
informed decisions about screening and provide them with information regarding
potential risks and benefits. Until the Programme has been monitored and evaluated in
accordance with the current three phase national evaluation the Programme has an
obligation to inform women that the quality of the performance of some of its parts
has not been tested. Women should also be informed that screening will not
necessarily detect cervical cancer.
11.39 Medical practitioners need to be reminded that cervical smear tests are not a means of
diagnosing cervical cancer. They need to be alert to signs of cervical cancer, and they
should not place too much reliance on a patient‟s smear test results to discount the
possibility of cervical cancer being present.
11.40 Primary screening of cervical smears should only be performed by individuals who are
appropriately trained for that task. Consideration should be given to requiring
pathologists to train as cytoscreeners if they want to function as primary screeners.
11.41 If cytology is a significant component of a pathologist‟s practice then he or she must
participate in continuing medical education in that subject.
11.42 If cytology is a major component of a pathologist‟s practice, it is desirable that he or
she should have added qualifications in cytopathology; either a fellowship slanted
towards cytopathology or a diploma in cytopathology. Consideration should be given
to making this a mandatory requirement.
11.43 Pathologists should be more open minded and critical of laboratory performance.
They should be alert to the possibility that their practice or the practice of their
colleagues may be sub-optimal.
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11.44 The Medical Council should ensure that systems are in place whereby medical
practitioners are not deterred from reporting to it their concerns about the practice of
an individual medical practitioner. Complainants should be assured that their reports
will not result in them being penalised in any way.
11.45 The screening programme should have in place a system over and above the audit and
monitoring reports, to identify deficiencies in its process. A form of survey of users so
that they can be proactive rather than reactive in the delivery of the programme would
be useful
11.46 A process to ensure that the recommendations made by the Committee are
implemented should be put in place.
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STAFF ASSISTING THE COMMITTEE OF INQUIRY
Counsel Assisting Royden Hindle
Hanne Jannes
Registrar Tracey Curtin
Stenographers Grace Rogers
Aisling Sunderland
Lisa Hart
Clerk Toni Watson
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PARTIES AND PERSONS HAVING AN INTEREST IN BEING HEARD
Women Affected by the Under-reporting of Abnormalities in Cervical Smears
in the Gisborne Region
Ngati Porou Hauora, Community Teams Kaitiaki / Maori Women Affected
Turanga Health
Ministry of Health
Health Funding Authority
Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia
Cancer Society
Medlab Hamilton
Medlab Gisborne
Tairawhiti Healthcare Limited
Regional Ethics Committee (excluding Tairawhiti Regional Ethics Committee)
Tairawhiti Regional Ethics Committee
Women‟s Health Action Trust
Women‟s Health Information and Resource Trust
Association of Community Laboratories
Dr Michael Bottrill
Medical Council of New Zealand
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WITNESSES WHO APPEARED BEFORE THE COMMITTEE
Name of Witness
Patient 1
Kerri May Tombleson
Deborah Crawford Murphy
Raewyn Marie Page
Patient 8
Patient 7
Patient 5
Patient 6
George Robert Boyd
Judith Glackin
Michael Bottrill
Lorraine Ria Earp
David Christopher Skegg
Euphemia McGoogan
Christopher Philip Mules
Sylvia Sax
Heni Materoa Sunderland
and
Robin Ehu Thompson
Tracey Tangihaere
Tracy Mellor
Julia Peters
Graham Douglas Walker
Diane Van der Mark
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Sharon Reid
John Maxwell Robertson
Bruce Montgomery Duncan
Michael Anthony Hugh
Baird
Kenneth John Thomson
Georgina Alice Jones
Ian Beer
Doctors Tie (Dr Graves &
Professor Davies sworn but
do not give oral evidence)
Clinton Adam Teague
Dr Ronald Jones
Annabelle Farnsworth
Gerard Wain
James Du Rose
Brian Cox
Gabrielle Medley
Sandra Coney
Brian Linehan
Brian Robert Morris
Janet Alison Wilson
Andrea Militia Winmill
Wendy Joy Ure
Eleanor Jane Vertongen
Patient 11
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Janice Hobbs
Betsy Marshall
Sandra Matcham
Victoria Sheldon and James
Fraser
Teenah Handiside
Timaringi Huirwai
David Lambie
Donald Evans
Karen Poutasi
Susan Dahl
Gillian Grew
*IN ADDITION TO ABOVE ORAL WINTESSES THE FOLLOWING EVIDENCE WAS
ADMITTED BY WAY OF AFFIDAVIT:
Name of Witness
Patient 15
Patient 16
Patient 17
Patient 18
Patient 19
Patient 20
Lucy Wright ( Solicitor,
Rainey Collins Wright )
John Ian Jamieson
(Parliamentary Counsel)
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LIST OF FORMAL PUBLIC SUBMISSIONS FILED WITH THE
CERVICAL SCREENING INQUIRY
AUSTIN, Frances Acting Chief Executive Ministry of Women‟s Affairs
BAILLIE, Barbara Member of the Public
BARWICK, Barbara Member of the Public
BEER, Ian Chairman Association of Community Laboratories
BURROWS, Hillary Member of the Public
CHURCHOUSE, Member of the Public
Michael
CLARK, Margaret Health Chair New Zealand Federation of Business and
EARDLEY-WILMOT, Professional Women Incorporated
Maureen National President
COPPELL, Kirsten Smear Taker and Health National Cervical Screening Programme
Professional (Otago)
DAVISON, Glenis Member of the Public
GASKIN, Nona Chairperson Gisborne Community Health Committee
and for and behalf of:
 Arthritis Foundation
 Cancer Society
 Parkinson‟s‟ Society
 Multiple Sclerosis Society
 Stroke Support
 Schizophrenia
Fellowship
 Head Inquiry Society
 Gisborne district Council –
Community Development Section
 A Patient Advocate
 2 Health Service Consumers
 Kidney Foundation
HANSEN, Peter Member of the Public
HENRY, Gary Manager National Women‟s Hospital
HERA, Jean and Anne Not Stated Palmerston North Women‟s Health
SANKO Collective Incorporated
MARSHALL, Betsy Chairperson Cervical Screening Advisory Committee
(1991-1994)
MOORE, Alison Supporter of the Women
of Gisborne and their
Families
PONTER, Elizabeth Submitter Regional Programmes of the National
Cervical Screening Programme
and
Manawatu-Wanganui National Cervical
Manager Screening Programme
ROBINSON, Raewyn Member of the Public
SAVAGE, Arthur Member of the Public
SLATER, Stuart Member of the Public
TOLLEMACHE, Nadja Chairperson Health Research Council Ethics
Committee
WILLIAMS, Lynda Co-ordinator Auckland Women‟s Health Council
WILSON, Janet Laboratory Manager Medlab Gisborne
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GLOSSARY OF LEGAL AND MEDICAL DEFINITIONS
For the assistance of lay people
ABNORMAL BLEEDING
(a) Post-coital - after intercourse
(b) Intermenstrual - between menstrual periods
(c) Post menopausal - after menopause
(d) Haemorrhage
ABNORMAL SMEAR All smears showing epithelial cell abnormalities, including atypical squamous cells of
undetermined significance (ASCUS), and atypical glandular cells of undetermined significance (AGUS), but not
including benign cellular changes (i.e. infection and reactive epithelial cell changes)
ADENOCARCINOMA Malignant lesion of glandular (endocervical) cells of the cervix
ADEQUATE SMEAR A smear that contains both squamous and endocervical or squamous metaplastic cells
AETIOLOGY (etiology) The cause of disease
AGE-ADJUSTED (OR AGE-STANDARDISED) RATES Mortality or morbidity rates in which there has
been an adjustment for differences in the age distribution of populations being compared
AGUS Atypical glandular cells of undetermined significance. These are glandular cells which demonstrate
changes which exceed those normally expected in benign reactive processes but which are insufficient for a
diagnosis of AIS or adenocarcinoma
AIS Adenocarcinoma in situ
ASCUS Atypical squamous cells of undetermined significance. These are minor epithelial cell changes whose
nature is uncertain but which may result from inflammation and repair processes, human papilloma virus (HPV)
effect or minor squamous or glandular intraepithelial neoplasia
ASYMPTOMATIC Without symptoms
ATYPIA Deviation from the normal or typical state
BENIGN TUMOUR A tumour that is not malignant, which usually remains a uniform shape enclosed in a
fibrous sac. It does not spread to other parts of the body, and usually does not recur after being removed. A
benign tumour does not indicate cancer
BETHESDA SYSTEM A systematic method of reporting cervical smear results
BIOPSY Removal of a sample of tissue from the body, for examination under a microscope, to assist with the
diagnosis of a disease
CANCER (Ca.) A general term for a large number of diseases which all display uncontrolled growth and a
spread of abnormal cells. Also called a malignant tumour
CANCER PRECURSOR Pre-cancerous
CARCINOMA A malignant new growth or tumour made up of epithelial cells that may infiltrate surrounding
tissues and give rise to metastases
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CARCINOMA IN SITU (CIS) A high grade abnormality confined to the squamous cell
epithelial layer of the cervix. Without treatment it may develop into invasive cancer. This is
synonymous with CIN-3
CERVICAL INTRAEPITHELIAL NEOPLASIA (CIN) Abnormal, potentially pre-cancerous cell changes of
the cervix. The abnormality can be graded as mild (CIN-1), moderate (CIN-2) and severe/CIS (CIN-3)
CERVICAL SMEAR TEST A screening test for the detection of squamous intraepithelial lesions, in which a
sample of the surface cells of the cervix or vagina/vault is taken, preserved immediately and sent to the
laboratory for examination
CERVIX (Cx.) The neck of the uterus
CIN Cervical intraepithelial neoplasia
CIN-1 Mildly abnormal cervical squamous cell changes
CIN-2 AND CIN-3 Moderately and severely abnormal cervical squamous cell changes
CLINICAL Matters relating to the health and care of patients
COITUS Sexual intercourse
COLPOSCOPE An instrument which allows the cervix and vagina to be examined in more detail. It is a
lighted magnifying instrument resembling a small mounted pair of binoculars. A colposcope may have a camera
attached that enables a woman to view her cervix on a television monitor
COLPOSCOPY An examination of the lower genital tract using a colposcope to examine for abnormal tissue.
Colposcopy has a central role in diagnosis and management or premalignant disease of the cervix. It is a
diagnostic technique involving the examination of a woman‟s cervix using a low powered microscope and to
facilitate biopsy for histological examination as appropriate. Treatment may also be carried out under
colposcopic examination
CONE BIOPSY, CONE EXCISION Surgical removal of a cone-shaped section of the cervix to remove
abnormal cells. The procedure is diagnostic and may be curative
COVERAGE The number, percentage, or proportion of eligible women reached by the NCSP
CYTOLOGY The study of cells. Cervical cytology aims to detect squamous cell carcinoma or the precursors
of cervical carcinoma. The cells are examined under a microscope for signs of abnormality:
(a) Positive cytology (smear) - an indicator of the presence of disease
(b) Negative cytology (smear) - an indicator of the absence of disease
CYTOPATHOLOGY The science of the study of diseased cells
DIAGNOSIS Identification of disease
DIAGNOSTIC SMEAR A smear taken outside the normal screening interval as part of the diagnostic
assessment of a woman who has signs or symptoms which might indicate cervical cancer
DIFFERENTIATION The process by which abnormal or immature cells are distinguished by individual
characteristics which are attributes of normal cell types
DOH Department of Health
DYSPLASIA Abnormal cell growth
DYSPAREUNIA Difficult or painful coitus (sexual intercourse) in women
ECTOCERVIX External aspect of the cervix
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ENDOCERVIX Internal aspect of the cervix
ENROLMENT The process of entering a woman‟s cervical smear information and results on the NCSR
EPIDEMIOLOGY The study of the distribution and causes of diseases and events in populations and the
application of this study to the control of health problems
EPITHELIUM Cells which make up the lining of the external surface and some internal linings of the body,
i.e. the skins, the lining of the lungs, the genital tract, the bladder
EJUSDEM GENERIS The rule that where particular words are followed by general words, the general words
are limited to the same kind as the particular words.
GLANDULAR Epithelial cells that produce a secretion
HFA Health Funding Authority and any successor to the HFA
HIGH GRADE LESION A cytological diagnosis encompassing CIN-2 and CIN-3 (moderate dysplasia, severe
dysplasia and carcinoma in situ), high grade squamous intraepithelial lesion (HSIL), and adenocarcinoma in situ
(AIS)
HISTOLOGY The microscopic study of the minute structure and composition of tissues by
tissue sections. Within the context of the NCSP this includes:
(a) Cervical histology
 Biopsies whether diagnostic or treatment
 Polyps
 Cervical component of hysterectomies with a diagnosis on the cervical component
(b) Vaginal histology
 Biopsies
 Polyps
HISTOPATHOLOGY The science of the study of diseased tissues
HSIL High grade squamous intraepithelial lesion. A cytological diagnosis encompassing CIN-2, CIN-3 and
CIS (moderate dysplasia, severe dysplasia and carcinoma in situ)
HUI Generic term for Maori gathering, meeting or conference (typically held on a Marae) and organised
according to Maori protocol
HUMAN PAPILLOMAVIRUS (HPV) A group of wart viruses, a high proportion of which are sexually
transmitted
HYSTERECTOMY Surgical removal of the uterus. The operation may be recommended for persistent or
recurrent CIN. Radical hysterectomy is performed in certain cases of early invasive cervical cancer. In a total
hysterectomy the uterus and cervix are both removed and in a subtotal hysterectomy the cervix remains - so that
regular smears are still necessary
INCIDENCE The number of new cases of a specified disease which are diagnosed or reported during a defined
period of time in a specified population
INTRAEPITHELIAL NEOPLASIA Abnormal cells in the epithelium of the lower genital tract. See CIN,
VAIN, VIN
INVASIVE CANCER OF THE CERVIX (INVASIVE SQUAMOUS CELL CARCINOMA) Condition
where cancerous cells spread beyond the surface epithelium into the underlying tissues. It may be diagnosed by
clinical examination with biopsy in women who present with abnormal bleeding and discharge. The cervical
smear is not a reliable method of diagnosing cervical cancer. Classified in four stages, from Stage I where the
cancer has not spread beyond the cervix, to Stage IV where it has extended beyond the pelvis. Cold knife cone
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biopsy or an extended hysterectomy (involving the upper vagina and lymph nodes) may be used to treat early
stage disease. Late stage disease is usually treated by radiation therapy
KAIMAHI Maori cervical screening co-ordinators, educators and smear takers
KAITIAKI Caregivers or guardians. The National Kaitiaki Group refers to the group set up to oversee the
disclosure, use, and publication of Maori women‟s summary data held on the NCSR under the Health (Cervical
Screening (Kaitiaki)) Regulations 1995
LAY SMEAR TAKERS Smear takers who have successfully completed an accredited educational course in
smear-taking and have no formal medical, nursing, or midwifery qualifications
LESION An area of tissue damaged by disease or injury
LLETZ Large Loop Excision of the Transformation Zone
LOW GRADE LESION A cytological diagnosis encompassing the changes previously described as HPV
infection and or CIN-1 (mild dysplasia) and atypical glandular cells - favouring dysplasia
LSIL Low-grade squamous intraepithelial lesion
MALIGNANT TUMOUR A cancer. A tumour that grows and invades surrounding tissue and infiltrates the
blood and lymphatic vessels. It eventually destroys the surrounding tissue and may spread to other parts of the
body (metastasise) (See cancer)
MALIGNANCY A condition which if unchecked usually develops into serious illness and may cause
premature death. When applied to tumours, may be described as an uncontrolled growth of cells.
MANAGEMENT The complete care of a patient including advice, information, treatment and follow-up
treatment or monitoring of a condition
METASTASES Malignant cells which have spread via lymph or blood vessels from the original site to another
site in the body
MOH Ministry of Health
MORTALITY The number of deaths from a specified disease during a defined period of time in a specified
population
NCSP National Cervical Screening Programme
NCSR National Cervical Screening Register
NEOPLASTIC Cancerous (See cancer/malignant tumour)
NON-MEDICAL SMEAR TAKERS People trained and approved to take cervical smears. A non-medical
smear taker is usually a registered or enrolled nurse with a current practising certificate but may be lay. If the
trainee smear taker is a lay person additional teaching is given to enable them to practice safely
NORMAL SMEAR A smear result which is reported to be within normal limits
PAPANICOLAOU TEST (SMEAR) A simple painless test used to detect pre-cancerous or cancerous changes
in the genital tract. Often called Pap smear or test. This term is not generally used in NZ. The preferred term is
cervical smear test
PATHOLOGY The study of the essential nature of disease, particularly changes in body tissues and organs
which are caused by disease
PLAINTIFF One who brings an action at law
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PRE-CANCEROUS Disease which has not invaded tissue outside the original site. In the context of this
Inquiry, it refers to changes confined to the epithelium or lining tissue, and is denoted by the classifications CIN-
1 to CIN-3 and AIS
PRECLINICAL Before disease becomes recognisable by symptoms or appearance
PREVALENCE RATE The number of cases of a specified disease in a given population at a designated time
PROGNOSIS Forecast of the probable course and outcome of a disease including prospects of recovery
PUNCH BIOPSY Very small specimen of tissue taken with special biopsy forceps which allows microscopic
examination by a pathologist
RADIUM A highly radioactive material used in the treatment of malignant diseases
RECURRENCE The return of symptoms after a period during which they have disappeared or reduced in
intensity, or the reappearance of overt disease
RHA Regional Health Authority
SCREENING The routine search for unsuspected disease (or medical investigation which does not arise from
the patient‟s request for advice for a specific complaint)
SCREENING TESTS Tests which sort apparently well women who probably have a disease from those who
probably do not. Screening is an initial examination only; those with a positive test require a more definitive
diagnostic examination
SENSITIVITY OF A TEST The proportion of truly diseased persons in the screened population who are
identified as diseased by the screening test. Sensitivity is a measure of the probability of correctly diagnosing a
case, or the probability that any given case will be identified by the smear test
SMEAR TEST See Papanicolaou test
SNOMED CODES Systematised Nomenclature of Medicine. A coding system for recording histological
diagnosis
SPECIFICIFY OF A TEST The proportion of truly non-diseased persons who are so identified by the
screening test. It is a measure of the probability of correctly identifying a non-diseased person with a screening
test
SQUAMOUS CELL CARCINOMA Cancer arising in the squamous epithelium identifiable microscopically
by its scaly or plate-like appearance. The most common form of cervical cancer arising from squamous cells in
the epithelium (tissue which lines the vagina and outer layers of the cervix)
SQUAMOUS CELLS A type specialised cell, which lines the vagina and outer layers of the cervix
STANDARD A standard is a minimum requirement upon which practice can be measured
TRANSFORMATION ZONE The region of the cervix where columnar cells have changed or are changing to
squamous cells. The metaplastic process (change from one cell type to another) may become abnormal due to
various factors such as viruses. It is the transformation zone that needs to be completely sampled when a smear
is
TREATMENTS/THERAPY Management or care of a patient in combating a disease or disorder
TUMOUR An abnormal growth of tissue. A benign tumour remains localised. It does not spread to other parts
of the body. A malignant tumour (cancer) invades surrounding tissue and may infiltrate the blood and lymphatic
vessels. A malignant tumour may spread to other parts of the body.
ULTRA VIRES An act in excess of the authority conferred by law, and therefore invalid.
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UNSATISFACTORY SMEAR A smear that cannot be evaluated by the laboratory
UTERUS (WOMB) The hollow muscular organ in which the fertilised egg normally becomes embedded and in
which the developing embryo-foetus is nourished. The uterus is a pear-shaped organ consisting of the body of
the uterus (or corpus) which narrows to form the cervix or neck of the womb. The Fallopian tubes enter the
uterus at its upper outer aspect, and at its lower end the cervix opens into the vagina or front passage
VAGINAL VAULT The upper part of the vaginal cavity into which the cervix projects
VAIN Vaginal intraepithelial neoplasia (See intraepithelial neoplasia)
VAULT SMEAR A smear taken from the top of the vagina after a hysterectomy or radiation treatment for
cancer of the cervix
VIN Vulval intraepithelial neoplasia (See intraepithelial neoplasia)
WEDGE BIOPSY a surgically-excised, wedge-shaped piece of tissue (large than the punch biopsy) taken for
examination by a pathologist
WHO World Health Organisation
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